Saint Omer

Alex Diop's first fictional or first non-documentary film, at least not direct documentary was screened at our local university's art museum. The connection the director, as the only black person and only person with the same heritage as the defendant, has with the woman on trial for the death of her child both acknowledges what is able to be related to in another person and how you can never truly understand someone. The film is based on the trial of Fabienne Kabou and Diop's own experience of witnessing and beginning a documentary on the trial. What initially was going to be a documentary of the trial became a dive into the life and struggles of the director, being of the same decent of the defendant and becoming a mother herself.