Synopsis
Saint Omer (2022) is a French courtroom drama directed by Alice Diop — watch it online on iFILM. Novelist Rama travels to a small town in northern France to sit in on the trial of Laurence Coly, a young woman charged with leaving her fifteen-month-old daughter on a beach as the tide came in. Rama intends to write a book about it. She does not expect what the trial will do to her.
Diop built the screenplay from a real case that moved through French courts in 2016 and 2017. Guslagie Malanda plays Laurence without reaching for sympathy or deflection — she answers questions with a stillness that the film refuses to explain away. As the testimony continues, Kayije Kagame's Rama finds herself listening not only to a crime but to something that brushes against her own fears about motherhood and inheritance.
The film took the Grand Jury Prize at Venice in 2022. It is almost entirely people talking in a courtroom. That is not a limitation — it is the point. Diop trusts the words and the faces, and the result is a film that stays with you. Stream Saint Omer (2022) online on iFILM.
Starring
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