Alice Diop directs Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda and Valérie Dréville in this French courtroom drama where a writer witnesses a full court case with parallels to her own life as a black woman in France.

Quite a dry and depressing court case in that looser French style of legal proceedings. We definitely get a strong idea about both women’s lives. One full of success, the other tragedy. And I can see the links and big themes this is addressing. Ultimately, the intent and meaning did elude me. Maybe that’s a failing in me but Saint Omer felt anti-climatic after the courtroom scenes had engaged me so deeply. The first work of narrative fiction by an established documentarian.

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Perfect Double Bill: Atlantics (2019)

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