Saint Omer (2022)

[Scottie]

Bringing a documentarian’s sense of open-ended inquiry to her first narrative feature, writer-director Alice Diop constructs a morally and emotionally layered courtroom drama unlike any other. When she travels to Saint-Omer, France, to attend the trial of a young Senegalese woman (Guslagie Malanda) accused of murdering her infant daughter, novelist Rama (Kayije Kagame) finds herself shaken to the core by a case that proves to have profound resonances with her own life. Interweaving complex themes of mother-daughter bonds, immigrant alienation, and postcolonial trauma into a piercing portrait of two mysteriously connected women, Diop forgoes mere questions of guilt and innocence in order to plumb the unsettling unknowability of the human soul.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 2K digital master, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• New interviews with director Alice Diop
• Conversation between Diop and author Hélène Frappat
• Conversation between Diop and filmmaker Dee Rees from a 2023 episode of The Director’s Cut – A DGA Podcast
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Jennifer Padjemi
• New design by Michael Boland

https://www.criterion.com/films/34051-saint-omer