NZIFF: Saint Omer

Drawing on a tragic true event, this multi-awarded and mesmerising, stately courtroom drama upends notions of race, cultural heritage, class and female agency, and the mythologies and social prejudices underpinning received ideas.

In the small French town of Saint Omer, Laurence, a cultivated young Senegalese woman is on trial for infanticide. She doesn't deny the charges: despite being a loving mother, she consciously abandoned her 15-month-old daughter to the waves on a beach at night. But to the court’s general consternation, Laurence impassively refutes any guilt: her act was the result of sorcery meted out by her aunts back in Senegal.
Among the people attending the trial, Rama, a Parisian author and academic, also of Senegalese background, has come to document it. Her publishers expect a juicy account, whereas Rama imagines integrating Laurence’s story into the modern-day adaptation of Medea she is writing. As the trial unfolds, revealing haunting details of Laurence’s immigrant experience, the ‘truth’ remains elusive. Laurence only becomes more opaque; her motivations more confounding, while Rama is increasingly rattled by unsettling childhood memories and unease about her own impending motherhood.
Rated M