Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb travels from Paris to Saint-Omer to observe the trial of Laurence Coly and write about the case Coly is a student and Senegalese immigrant accused of leaving her 15-month-old daughter on a beach to be swept away by the tide in Berck is in a mixed-race relationship and has a complex relationship with her own Senegalese immigrant mother She plans to write a modern day retelling of the Greek Medea myth about the case As she learns more about Coly’s life and the isolation Coly experienced from her family and society while living in France Rama becomes increasingly anxious about her own life and pregnancy There will be a post screening Q&A hosted by Marina Vujnovic with special guest speaker Prof France (OSV News) — A man was taken into police custody after a major fire broke out at the historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in the northern French town of Saint-Omer in the morning hours of Sept the prosecutor’s office said that a suspect had been taken into custody that same evening and that the man has been known to authorities “for similar acts” in the past said Saint-Omer’s prosecutor Mehdi Benbouzi Government ministers including Culture Minister Rachida Dati expressed “solidarity” with the residents of Saint-Omer The town of Saint-Omer has a historical connection to the Catholic Church in the United States and its first bishop — John Carroll of Maryland. According to charlescarrollhouse.org his family sent him and his cousin Charles to study with the Jesuits at the College of St Father Carroll in 1789 became the first bishop of the new United States which then included all 13 original states His cousin Charles was the only Catholic signer of the U.S entered the burning church to evacuate the consecrated hosts “I wanted to evacuate the Blessed Sacrament,” he reported after successfully doing so and coming out unharmed 2 statement that “It was with shock that I learned early this morning that the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer was suffering a particularly violent and destructive fire.” One hundred and twenty firefighters contained the flames and no one was hurt although more than 50 residents living nearby were evacuated as a precaution “I want to tell all those who attended this church of my closeness in prayer,” he wrote 4 he met the local community and celebrated a morning Mass in the town’s Basilica of Our Lady of Miracles “I entrust you all — residents of Saint-Omer firefighters and professionals working to ensure the safety of people and places — to the Virgin Mary to whom this church is dedicated,” he said of the Church of the Immaculate Conception which originated in the mid-19th century and was only restored and reopened in 2018 Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on X “My thoughts are with the Catholics and the people of Saint-Omer,”adding that “an investigation is under way to determine the exact cause of the fire.” Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe said the alleged perpetrator “was known for similar activities He has attempted to set fire to 15 churches and has been convicted 25 times.” The group added that he followed “Islamic content.” Chapel re-opening in France marks ties to Carroll students Masses highlight differences and connections between France and U.S.  Print Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media Catholic Media Assocation Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association The Associated Church Press A victory to say adieu to the WSE Champions League for Barça as David Cáceres' side came through 3-4 away to SCRA Saint-Omer (3-4) in the final gameweek of Europe's premier club competition Barroso and Pablo Álvarez scored the blaugrana goals Neither side could classify for the next round The blaugranes started best with Marc Grau hitting the woodwork before Eloi Cervera struck with a long shot in the 13th minute (0-1) Carles Grau maintained the lead before Sergi Aragonès extended it (0-2 The French side kept pushing and hit back through Marçal Cuenca on the counter (1-2 Still time for two more goals before half-time before Colin reduced the deficit to one from the right wing (2-3 The pace dropped after restart but the chances keep coming Carles Grau made an early save before Matias Pascual hit the bar There was nothing to choose between the sides but the home side got two penalties in a row – Colin dispatched the first to make it 3-3 The blaugranes then took the game to the home side Marc Grau and Pablo Álvarez both being thwarted by the keeper the latter broke the deadlock in the 44th minute with a shot into the top left hand corner (3-4) and sealed a win in the final game in Europe this season Barça will face Noia Freixenet into the quarterfinals of the Copa del Rey (6 March attends the trial of a student accused of murder This courtroom showcases a tragedy worthy of Euripides: the archetypal unforgiveable act of infanticide Laurence Coly has already confessed to killing her 15-month-old daughter Despite being in the courtroom only as an observer the writer is clearly wracked by Coly’s story So it is not surprising that we watch Rama’s lectures with an eye toward the courtroom drama with which she is increasingly fascinated Rama screens archival footage of l’épuration or the post–World War II purge in 1944-45: when French women who were reputed to have collaborated—by taking Vichy or German lovers—forcibly had their heads shaved Saint Omer’s camera fixes on individual students reacting to that symbolic shaming Rama reads lines from Marguerite Duras’s script for Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima mon amour (1959) stating that “a woman who is the object of shame becomes,” thanks to the writer’s words not just a heroine but “a subject in a state of grace.” “that for a long time I couldn’t put into words.” Diop’s and French director Justine Triet’s acclaimed feature-length Anatomy of a Fall which showcase the revival of the French courtroom drama how it sheds light on the French legal system today and how it pursues perennial questions surrounding the moral expectations associated with motherhood Courtroom dramas and crime procedurals are staples of American cinema and television. But the French artistic canon mostly lacks a comparable subgenre.1 Instead French artists really adore a good fait divers—a “tabloid headliner”—as in Claude Chabrol’s neo-noir Violette Nozière (1978) based on a real-life teenage sex worker who poisoned her parents Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall was the talk of the festival circuit Winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (which Triet coauthored with Arthur Harari) the film depicts a woman—both a writer and a mother—on trial for her husband’s murder after he fell to his death under questionable circumstances the film weaves professional jealousy with the overwhelming responsibility of caring for a blind son it features drawn-out evidentiary proceedings during which covertly recorded audio and Anatomy revived the long-stale genre of the courtroom drama Anatomy also overshadowed another film that came out the year prior: Diop’s Saint Omer (2022) Despite winning the César for Best Film and the Jean Vigo Prize Saint Omer did not attract as wide of an audience Yet both films portray immigrant women—a Senegalese woman in the French commune of Saint-Omer and a German woman in Grenoble—who are similarly lost within an unfamiliar French legal system And both films introduce international audiences to the particularities of French criminal law such as the fact that it lacks admissibility requirements around “hearsay,” meaning that eyewitness testimony can be more expansive (and speculative) than in the US when faced with factual and/or circumstantial evidence are forced to justify their own selfishness: to explain why they are bad mothers rather than how they committed the crimes Why did Laurence confine her daughter to her room hiding the baby’s existence from her own family and denying the child the pleasures of the outside world consistently choose her career as a novelist over her family leaving her husband with the bulk of the childcare and little time to write himself Why did Sandra commit adultery and dabble in bisexuality—other supposed “signs” of her bad character It is telling that neither film hands down a verdict we are meant to identify with the defendants—albeit for different reasons These are stories not of motherhood but of humanity; as Laurence’s lawyer intones Saint Omer was shot in six weeks between May and July of 2021 and the novelist Marie NDiaye—resembles NDiaye’s own novel Vengeance Is Mine published the same year (and later translated by Jordan Stump) the witness figure is not the lawyer but Rama (Kayije Kagame) which brings up complicated feelings about her own mother and pending motherhood The film repeatedly showcases flashbacks to domestic scenes of Rama and her mother her mother drinks her morning chocolat and leaves without greeting the waking Rama video evidence from a seemingly jovial Christmas party in 2000 is shown; the camera lingers over the inscrutable The present-day Rama never outright voices her ambivalence about her pregnancy; instead the camera rests on her concerned face or her shaking body as she curls into the fetal position on her hotel bed she cannot muster her partner’s joyous enthusiasm or bring herself to announce it to her mother She does develop a casual friendship with Laurence’s mother who instantly guesses that she is pregnant Rama even screens Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 adaptation of Medea on her laptop as Saint Omer doubles down on its core reference: an ancient myth of a mother murdering her own children the accused’s story is mostly delivered by her own lips she is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity a fact that does not become fully clear until the end of the film there are no scenes of gathering physical evidence as the camera closely follows a heavily breathing Laurence as she makes her way down the beach The bulk of the trial testimony involves character witnesses a sculptor upon whom she is financially dependent It might surprise American viewers to know that trial judges in French courtrooms interrogate criminals and witnesses seemingly with much more leeway than their American counterparts the trial judge (Valérie Dréville) and her inquiry dominate the courtroom scenes Her questions illuminate Laurence’s past but not her motivations; the defendant is not so much distressed as disappointed She does not seem to regret having become a mother nor does she shy away from referring to her by her name If the trial judge sees through the lover’s feigned shock and sadness—had he not hidden his girlfriend and his child from his friends and family?—she also does not spare Laurence pressing her to come to terms with not just her crime but also her failures Laurence had attended classes but not taken exams so her undergraduate degree had never been validé (conferred) Her dreams of intellectual grandeur were practically moot the young Black woman mostly seems guilty of expecting too much of herself wonders why she wanted to do a thesis on Wittgenstein rather than on something “closer to her own culture.” Laurence offers only a half-hearted response claiming that “Westerners” wouldn’t understand the film depicts this back-and-forth between the trial judge and the accused—and the occasional witness or lawyer—in long the viewer has seen the actress from every angle: from the audience’s pews up close (where the witness stand is no longer in view) long shots also spend an inordinate amount of time in a single-color palette; Malanda’s skin is a deep chestnut she wears a tan jumpsuit several shades lighter and she is placed in front of a wall with birch wood paneling Her impassive face just barely emotes as a lip turns down or quivers Diop forces the viewer to sit uncomfortably with the mother-defendant the object of a presumably “objective” modern French judiciary that ultimately relies on the oldest mode of determining guilt: reactionary morality Loud sobs can be heard over this testimony; Laurence is weeping but eventually stops As Vaudenay’s speech fades and the film’s final sequences unfurl Nina Simone’s melancholic “Little Girl Blue” plays Saint Omer transforms this trial of a woman accused into a purge of its own Subscribe to RSS 0$0.00 Father Sebastien Roussel / Paroisse Sainte Mère Teresa en Morinie (Left) The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer by @runews / X CV NEWS FEED // During the September 2 fire that burned the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer Sébastien Roussel entered the church to save the Blessed Sacrament According to Actu Pas-de-Calais According to an unofficial English translation of the report Everything caught fire very quickly; the bell tower burned like a torch…” He entered the church with the firefighters’ permission “I wanted to evacuate the Blessed Sacrament (consecrated hosts) and the reliquary bust of Saint Cornelius,” and he successfully rescued the Eucharist and the relic from the fire “I also wanted to move the Stations of the Cross but I didn’t have time; the fire spread too quickly,” the priest continued The church’s roof and spire were destroyed during the fire, Franc Bleu reports Fifty-seven residents living near the church had to evacuate their homes.  a part of a family of three who lived near the cathedral and first raised the alarm we noticed a strange smell and called the firefighters This rain of fire fell upon us—pieces of wood and ashes I had to cover my son with a blanket because it was literally falling on us.” It was not specified in the report whether the father or mother was speaking and I used to pray to the Virgin Mary there.” Édith lives across the street from the church “There was a beautiful grotto inside,” Édith added My daughters made their communion and baptism there; it’s a bit hard I feel a bit alone now—I no longer have my church.” and offer Mass at the Basilica of Notre-Dame des Miracles Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms and Conditions 2023The movie’s protagonist is a writer and professor named Rama (Kayije Kagame) who attends the trial in order to write a book about its defendant Laurence.Photograph courtesy Srab Films / Arte France CinemaSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyOn a long and deep beach at night with little but moonlight shimmering vaguely on the waves a woman gently but unhesitatingly deposits a baby in the sand I’d have sworn that I saw this in the French director Alice Diop’s film “Saint Omer,” yet I’d also swear that I didn’t—because although no such scene is included in the movie it’s described so vividly in the course of the action that I felt as if it was shown onscreen The person who describes the event is Laurence Coly (played by Guslagie Malanda) who is accused of killing her baby in this manner and whose detailed confession of her crime occurs in the courtroom Diop does more in “Saint Omer” than create an original and far-reaching courtroom drama; she establishes an aesthetic that seemingly puts the characters’ language itself in the frame along with the psychological vectors that connect them This spare and straightforward method gives rise to a film of vast reach and great complexity “Saint Omer,” which goes into wide release Friday is both a docudrama and an implicit metafiction placing the filmmaker’s surrogate in the onscreen action The movie’s protagonist isn’t Laurence but a thirtysomething writer and professor named Rama (Kayije Kagame) who attends the trial in order to write a book about Laurence and whose point of view as an observer is the one through which the details of the trial are conveyed Diop based the movie on the real-life case of Fabienne Kabou for killing her own baby—and Diop in fact attended that trial Diop was born in France to a Senegalese family; like Laurence Kabou was born and raised in Senegal and came to France to attend university On the basis of the narrow premise of this trial Diop creates a wide-ranging and probing drama to explore such critical matters as the nature of personal and national identity the multigenerational traumas of migration France’s ongoing political and cultural failures to reflect its ethnic and racial diversity the very power of language to create images and to embody realities which is the engine of Diop’s mightily inventive cinematic craft into conflict with her sense of justice and Diop starts the film with a shot of a Black woman carrying a baby, in what appears to be a nightmare from which Rama awakens, calling for her mother. She’s comforted by her partner, a white man named Adrien (Thomas de Pourquery), a musician. A series of calmly observed sequences—Rama, in a lecture hall, teaching a class centered on Marguerite Duras’s use of language to transform a woman’s public degradation into exaltation; Rama at the apartment of her elderly mother (Adama Diallo Tamba); Rama’s childhood memory of her mother’s remote sternness—sketches Rama’s self-image with a thematically focussed clarity that snaps into connection with the defendant in ways that both fuel Rama’s drive to depict Laurence artistically and yet also disturb and even frighten the writer Diop’s distinctive dramatization of the trial—and its impact on Rama—arises from France’s specific judicial practices in which defendants are subject to direct questioning by judges as well as by prosecutors and defense attorneys Diop (who wrote the script with Amrita David and Marie NDiaye) gives the characters virtual arias: extended scenes and lengthy monologues in which they develop the narratives that their interrogators demand of them the presiding judge (played by Valérie Dréville) starts by examining the defendant’s entire life story—birth and childhood the ins and outs of her years in France—before getting started on the details of the crime itself and the judge doesn’t hesitate to interrupt in order to challenge Laurence with information that she has got from other witnesses confronts similar blind spots in her own field When she speaks by phone with her editor (voiced by Alain Payen) about the plan to write a book about Laurence—she wants to title it “Medea Castaway”—he notes that Laurence is said to speak “very sophisticated French.” (It comes off as if he’d called her “articulate.”) Rama retorts that the defendant merely “talks like an educated woman.” Laurence’s testimony reveals her embittered relationship with Luc as retold one way by Laurence and another way by the stuffy and tremulous Luc is a mighty melodrama of secrets and lies.) An encounter with Laurence’s mother (Salimata Kamate) gives Rama a glimpse at the deforming force of their conflict-ridden bond by dint of their similar experiences and backgrounds—their implicit solidarity as Black women (the only two in the courtroom which is emphasized when Laurence turns her head and That exchange of glances is the fulcrum of “Saint Omer” and one of the most striking moments in any recent film Its enormous dramatic power is the product of Diop’s ingenious visual schema one that’s all the more striking for its simplicity (Kudos to the cinematographer Claire Mathon for her precise and lucid realization of it.) The physical organization of the Saint Omer courtroom is a virtual character in the movie: Laurence is seated in a witness box of her own at a ninety-degree angle from the judges’ and spectators’ points of view (Other witnesses testify from a small lectern near the center of the room; they and Laurence are all required to testify standing up.) When Laurence first speaks she’s depicted from the visual point of view of Rama who’s seated with a few dozen other spectators at the rear of the courtroom Diop shows Laurence from a different angle and distance for each extended sequence of Laurence’s testimony a detached visual point of view that’s associated with no specific character in the courtroom these frontal views of Laurence come off as being identified with Rama—not visually but intellectually It’s as if the viewer were seeing Laurence not through Rama’s eyes but through her mind’s eye as if the discerning analyses and transformative rhetoric of Rama’s writing mind were being embodied in real time by way of Diop’s images That’s why the switch to a moment of actual visual connection when Rama and Laurence lock eyes in the courtroom comes as such a shock—and why it embodies a dramatic moment of crisis Rama recognizes that she’s being pulled into complicity with Laurence in a way that induces her to overlook Laurence’s heinous deed that gets her to neglect (as she tells Adrien) the life of the child that has been lost and which even risks luring her into Laurence’s defense—in effect That moment decisively throws the moral onus of the film onto Rama and converts the drama to one of her own consciousness in the overlap of her background and experience with those of Laurence she envisions her own maternity as a potential crisis and horror Laurence’s narration has a persuasive authority that does more than create images; by way of the cultural bonds connecting her to Rama ones that she finds herself vehemently resisting Diop never shows the verdict; the movie abandons the courtroom before it’s rendered. (In real life, Kabou was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment but also given psychological treatment.) In this regard, “Saint Omer” brings to mind a similar scene in another recent film, “Till.” There with a white judge and an all-white jury—of two white men accused of killing Emmett “I know what the verdict is.” In “Saint Omer,” Diop by eliding the verdict and taking the film out of the courtroom before it’s rendered again incarnates Rama’s internal perspective Diop doesn’t suggest that the white-dominated court will inevitably issue an unjust verdict in the case of a Black woman but that this court is the wrong place to tell the story of her crime and all its implications with all the personal and moral risk to the artist that it entails A long-ago crime, suddenly remembered A limousine driver watches her passengers transform The day Muhammad Ali punched me What is it like to be keenly intelligent but deeply alienated from simple emotions? Temple Grandin knows The harsh realm of “gentle parenting.”  Retirement the Margaritaville way Fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald: “Thank You for the Light.”  Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker. Diop's nonfiction films — seven in total including 2022's award-winning Nous (We) — depict the reality of life in Paris as her subjects share the most intimate details of their daily existence "One of the reasons I made that film was to oppose the dominant image of France that denies a part of the population," she explains "My way of being French is not being recognized in the dominant discourse [Nous] is a film that is actively in resistance but it's also a film that opposes the cliches that French people themselves have about the bonheur." Diop shares with A.frame five of the films that have most impacted her as a viewer and inspired her as a filmmaker "These are the films I come back to the most," she says "The films and the filmmakers that have marked me profoundly are all ones that are searching They're not working in normative forms They're renewing forms through what they do." MORE: 'Saint Omer' Director Alice Diop on Bringing 'Documentary Truth' to Her Narrative Debut (Exclusive) Icon_Audio-Video_-PlayCreated with Sketch.Where to watchDirected by: Claire Denis One film that I always come back to is a film by Claire Denis who I love on a personal level and an artistic level It's the film that marked me the most deeply in my life and really made me trust mise-en-scène direction as something that allows you to say political things Sensuality in Claire Denis' films is so important She does things that allow you to be sensually political and politically sensual Icon_Audio-Video_-PlayCreated with Sketch.Where to watchWhere to Watch: The Criterion Channel Chantal Akerman's films have been integral to building me as a filmmaker because she is someone who has navigated with such fluidity and a strong sense between mise-en-scène and fiction Jeanne Dielman is a film I discovered 10 years ago Icon_Audio-Video_-PlayCreated with Sketch.Where to watchDirected by: Frederick Wiseman A large part of why I became a documentary filmmaker is because of Wiseman because I come from a background in doing history and anthropology at university This is the film that made me understand cinema's power to carry a sociological and anthropological discourse to take questions that were stuck in the limited framework of the university and take these questions further Public Housing made me want to start making documentaries It showed me the complex power that cinema has to address sociological and anthropological questions Icon_Audio-Video_-PlayCreated with Sketch.Where to watchDirected by: Marguerite Duras I actually discovered Marguerite Duras quite late her film Les Mains négatives was a big influence on Nous It's maybe not something that's obvious when you see the film but her way of recording traces of people you don't necessarily see like fireflies of trying to show people who have been silenced that really inspired me for the character of Ismael Soumaïla Sissoko in Nous There's something about that film that helped me understand the character of Ismael not only from a filmmaker's perspective but a philosophical and political perspective Icon_Audio-Video_-PlayCreated with Sketch.Where to watchWhere to Watch: The Criterion Channel This short film was the very first time I saw the suburbs of Paris filmed with grace The voiceover is extraordinary and some of the shots really have the beauty and power of a photograph because it's a film where the framing allows you to see how remarkable it is to see something in such a graceful manner This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page The Church of the Immaculate Conception - a major landmark in Saint-Omer Wiki Image from Panoramio/38604725 by Jean Marc Gfp The Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer (Pas de Calais) has been gravely damaged following a fire which started in the early hours of Monday 2nd September A hundred and twenty firefighters battled to extinguish the fire which had started around 4.30am was taken into custody on Monday evening and has since acknowledged responsibility leading a shocked community in prayers in front of the stricken Church before presiding at a Mass in the Basilica of Our Lady of Miracles close by the Church of the Immaculate Conception was hailed "a remarkable neo-gothic-inspired building" but the onslaught of the fire has been severe the spire and a 19th-century Merklin organ went up in smoke was able to successfully retrieve the consecrated and reserved Blessed Sacrament from inside the church 'This calls to mind [the fire] of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris,' he lamented a faithful parishioner who loved to pray in the Lady Chapel "My daughters made their First Holy Communion here The blue-stone interior was sober and magnificent." Bishop Leborgne had assured distressed parishioners and the local community on Monday that he was joining them in prayer adding: "I entrust everyone - residents of Saint-Omer firefighters and professionals assuring the safety of people and places - to the Virgin Mary The arsonist has admitted to smashing a stained-glass window to break and enter the church with the aim of stealing money from collection boxes the procurator of the Republic for Saint-Omer had come out of prison at the end of August following 'a long incarceration' for several 'robberies and criminal damage' He had previously been found guilty of 'destruction by fire' on several occasions and notably for 'damage to a religious building.' the Mayor of Saint-Omer (Pas-de-Calais) gave thanks for "small miracles" Cherished church furniture including the altar a confessional booth and the stations of the cross were successfully evacuated and were relatively unscathed "We are waiting for experts to come and carry out a more sophisticated analysis," said the mayor the first priority right now being to secure the church's façade the Church of the Immaculate Conception was built in the Faubourg de Haut-Pont Mayor Decoster said : "Known affectionately as Our Lady of the Faubourgs [Suburbs] the church plays a very significant role in the life of this community." Closed in 2015 due to safety concerns it underwent significant restoration for five million Euros Coinciding with the Bishop's visit on Wednesday Mayor Decoster launched a fund-raising drive with the Fondation du patrimoine (Heritage Foundation) to finance future restoration works The inferno has been witnessed by millions across the world on social media local communities are responsible for the upkeep of places of worship built before 1905 (the year of the separation of Church and State in France and the inception of the French 'secular state') Speaking to France Bleu Radio the mayor said: "Our church is crucial to our identity Holy Land: Cross stolen from Church of Loaves and Fishes Cameroon: Easter heartbreak - A deeply moving Resurrection story from the frontline Filipino Bishop in UK calling banks to stop financing fossil fuels We offer publicity space for Catholic groups/organisations. See our advertising page if you would like more information ICN aims to provide speedy and accurate news coverage of all subjects of interest to Catholics and the wider Christian community As our audience increases - so do our costs You can support our journalism by advertising with us or donating to ICN The Champions League is under way and Barça have started in the best possible fashion with a 7-2 victory over French side Saint-Omer in the Palau Blaugrana David Cáceres' team had to come from behind to take the win and earn the coach his first win as blaugrana boss in European competition The game did not get off the best of starts for the blaugranes as they found themselves a goal down after just four minutes when Thibault Colin fired home the blaugranes held their nerve and two goals in a minute from Pablo Álvarez and then Sergi Llorca saw Barça in front with less than a quarter of an hour played Before the break David Cáceres' side would take control of the game against Saint-Omer Matías Pascual made it 3-1 with a well taken effort before the in-form Ferran Font added a fourth Saint-Omer showed there was still life in the game in the second half when they pulled it back to 4-2 thanks to Barengo's goal two goals in 23 seconds from Pablo Álvarez concluded a hat-trick for the Argentinian and put his side into a 6-2 lead Matías Pascual rounded off the win to make 7-2 with eight minutes remaining to give the blaugranes a confidence boost ahead of their next two league games away at Calafell and at Reus Xavi Barroso and Marc Grau - starting five - Matías Pascual Thibault Colin and Fabien Barengo - starting five - Marçal Cuenca and more than €50 million in cash and cryptocurrency Survey reveals Muslim students disproportionately drive tensions A historic church in northern France was destroyed in an arson attack on Monday was arrested after the blaze at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the town of Saint-Omer Vigoureux is “known for similar acts of destruction by fire,” the prosecutor of Saint-Omer The attacker is facing a criminal charge of “destruction of property by dangerous means because of religion,” Benbouzid added before spreading to the side and central aisles It took 120 firefighters to contain the conflagration although around 60 local residents were evacuated as a precaution Parish priest Fr. Sébastien Roussel told Catholic News Agency that he was able to rescue the Blessed Sacrament and a reliquary from the church: With the authorisation and under the supervision of the firefighters I was able to enter the church when the fire was under control to take what is most important namely the ciborium in the tabernacle at first then several statues and elements of the liturgical furniture His actions enabled the rescue of the Blessed Sacrament and around 20 other religious artefacts including a reliquary bust of Saint Corneille but was completely renovated by the local council in 2018 at a cost of €5m.  According to the Observatoire du Patrimoine Religieux and 12 were attacked in the first six months of 2024.  In July this year, the church of Notre-Dame du Travail in the 14th arrondissement of Paris was defiled with violent Islamist graffiti calling for war parishioners discovered a fire had been started Last year, a French criminal court gave a four-year prison sentence to a 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private diaries are revealed Magazine Subscribers only For Jewish cartoonist Joann Sfar 2025."> Pixels Subscribers only Golden Owl solution is revealed but leaves players of 31-year hunt disappointed Pixels Subscribers only Secrets of decades-long Golden Owl treasure hunt to be revealed Lifestyle Inside Chanel's French leather workshops Culture Subscribers only The marvelous bronzes of Angkor on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris a fire broke out in the 19th-century church in the northern French town of Saint-Omer Firefighters work to contain a fire in the Church of the Immaculate Conception MARC DEMEURE / PHOTOPQR/VOIX DU NORD/MAXPPP A major fire broke out at a historic church in northern France early on Monday with its bell tower collapsing as a result of the blaze a fire broke out in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the northern town of Saint-Omer Thanks to the efforts of 90 firefighters the fire was contained by Monday morning a representative of the prefecture told Agence France-Presse (AFP) but around 50 residents living nearby were evacuated as a precaution "My thoughts are with the Catholics and the people of Saint-Omer," Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on X "An investigation is under way to determine the exact cause of the fire," he added a fire broke out in the spire of the medieval cathedral in the northern French city of Rouen during renovation work Lecture du Monde en cours sur un autre appareil Vous pouvez lire Le Monde sur un seul appareil à la fois Ce message s’affichera sur l’autre appareil Parce qu’une autre personne (ou vous) est en train de lire Le Monde avec ce compte sur un autre appareil Vous ne pouvez lire Le Monde que sur un seul appareil à la fois (ordinateur En cliquant sur « Continuer à lire ici » et en vous assurant que vous êtes la seule personne à consulter Le Monde avec ce compte Que se passera-t-il si vous continuez à lire ici Ce dernier restera connecté avec ce compte Vous pouvez vous connecter avec votre compte sur autant d’appareils que vous le souhaitez mais en les utilisant à des moments différents Nous vous conseillons de modifier votre mot de passe Votre abonnement n’autorise pas la lecture de cet article merci de contacter notre service commercial A French priest is making headlines for prioritizing the Eucharist when his church was burned The fire caused severe damage to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer Catholic News Agency reports that the cause of the blaze is believed to be arson A 39-year-old suspect was apprehended for allegedly breaking into the church and starting the fire at around 4 a.m It is said that the alleged arsonist has a history of attempting to start fires at places of worship Father Sébastien Roussel was contacted about the fire not long after the fire department reached the scene. Springing into action, Fr. Roussel immediately went to the church, where he found that the fire was spreading. He described to the French news outlet Actu Pas-de-Calais how “the bell tower burned like a torch ..." He quickly sought and received permission from the fire team to enter the building and save what was most valuable The church had no artworks deemed historic but there was an even greater treasure housed within: the Eucharist “There was no work classified as a historic monument or registered But I wanted to evacuate the Blessed Sacrament (consecrated hosts) The priest went on to say that he wanted to pull down the stations of the cross but there was simply no time as the fire spread quickly He did note that the stations survived with minimal fire damage but they were damaged a bit from the water Roussel was thankful that many of the church’s stained glass windows sustained minimal damage.  Roussel said he was hopeful that the church could be salvaged he did note that it is likely that some of the lead in the stained glass windows had melted This could lead to a cleanup effort similar to that after the Notre Dame de Paris fire He said it was too early to estimate the damages but he suggested that it would most likely take years of reconstruction before it is back to its former glory.  Read more at Actu Pas-de-Calais. Articles like these are sponsored free for every Catholic through the support of generous readers just like you Please make a tax-deductible donation today Help us continue to bring the Gospel to people everywhere through uplifting Catholic news Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) confesses to causing the death of her baby daughter Elise in Saint Omer I used to watch Perry Mason every day after school I was drawn to the show's black-and-white clarity I naturally discovered that things are grayer and more elusive in real world courtrooms It's not simply that you can't always be sure who's telling the truth but that sometimes nobody knows the truth well enough to tell it This ambiguity takes mesmerizing form in Saint Omer the strikingly confident feature debut of Alice Diop a 43-year-old French filmmaker born of Senegalese immigrants Based on an actual criminal case in France in which a Senegalese woman killed her baby daughter Diop's fictionalized version is at once rigorous powerful and crackling with ideas about isolation the tricky bonds between mothers and daughters and the equally tricky human habit of identifying with other people for reasons we may not grasp a successful intellectual writer who has a white musician boyfriend and a Senegalese mother she can't quite stand She heads off from Paris to the town of Saint Omer to watch the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) Laurence is a Senegalese woman who once dreamed of being a genius philosopher — she casually namechecks Descartes — but now confesses to causing the death of her baby daughter Elise Rama plans to write a book about her titled we get sucked into a trial that unfolds in the French manner meaning that the judge — empathetically played by Valérie Dréville — questions most of the witnesses in a probing We see the self-serving slipperiness of Laurence's partner a bearded white man 30-odd years her senior who wouldn't let her meet his family or friends We hear the righteous words of the mother she always felt distant from and we cringe at the testimony of her one-time professor who wonders why Laurence had wanted to study Wittgenstein rather than a thinker befitting her African roots the trial's star attraction is Laurence who in Malanda's rivetingly charismatic performance is at once controlled and unreadable: She makes us feel that there's a whole universe in Laurence's head that we can never reach Although her testimony is delivered matter-of-factly — even when she blames the murder on sorcery — she often contradicts her earlier statements Asked why she left Elise to die on the beach "I hope this trial will give me the answer." Kayije Kagame plays a writer covering the murder trial we gradually realize why Rama is so enthralled by her story but I will say that Saint Omer is as much about Rama as it is about Laurence The film explores Rama's own cultural alienation and intellectual analogies to Elise's murder that may or may not be accurate She wonders if she may contain within herself the seeds of whatever has been motivating Laurence it must be said that Rama's story is less emotionally compelling than the murder case Rama's identification with Laurence shows how the social and psychological issues raised in the trial go well beyond the courtroom Saint Omer is about far more than just one murderous mother What makes the movie unforgettable are the scenes in the courtroom and she looks at the trial with a born observer's unblinkingly rapt attention she scrutinizes the characters for hints as to what made Laurence do it; she makes us feel the volcanic emotional pressure behind Laurence's largely unflappable demeanor; and she lets us see the complex multi-layered network of social and psychological forces that led her to the beach We keep asking ourselves whether Laurence is a criminal — or a victim Become an NPR sponsor Saint O is featured this week on the Not Just Jazz Network to amplify the band's impact further and reach within the jazz and world music communities with their new release "One Life To Live" and new website 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Get ready to experience a thrilling new sound as Saint O the Afro-Caribbean jazz ensemble led by percussionist Jermaine St takes the world on a musical journey with the release of their highly anticipated new album With its vibrant fusion of Caribbean rhythms and jazz improvisation this 10-song album captures the essence of Saint O's unique musical identity The group has also launched an updated website offering fans and music lovers easy access to their latest music Saint O's genre-defying music combines the soulful rhythmic energy of Afro-Caribbean traditions with the sophistication of jazz improvisation invigorating sound that appeals to world music connecting diverse audiences with a shared celebration of cultural richness and musical excellence "We are so excited to share 'One Life To Live' with the world they feel the spirit of the Caribbean and the freedom of jazz that we're passionate about." ~ Jermain St a dynamic and multifaceted artist known for his drumming and percussion mastery Saint O takes its listeners on an unforgettable journey through the Caribbean soul including performing with Canada's first black female Juno Award winner Liberty Silver Omer's leadership brings depth and authenticity to the band's sound Omer enrolled at the Ontario College of Percussion for a few years where he studied the application of drums and percussion under the tutelage of Director Paul Robson before taking on a Canada-wide tour as drummer with the R&B/Funk/Disco ensemble "ODYSSEY." "We are so excited to share 'One Life To Live' with the world," says Jermaine St they not only enjoy the music but feel the spirit of the Caribbean and the freedom of jazz that we're passionate about." Saint O's allure has earned them a loyal following across the Toronto jazz scene having graced the stages of renowned festivals and venues including The World of Jazz Festival in Brampton Known for their powerful live performances the band creates an electrifying atmosphere that draws listeners of all backgrounds and ages into the music Discover the Music and Explore the New Website The One Life To Live album is now available for purchase and streaming on major platforms, including saintomusic.com where fans can also explore exclusive content and updates on the latest projects from the band The new website serves as a hub for music lovers to connect with Saint O and learn more about the history and vision behind this exciting Afro-Caribbean jazz collective Saint O is being featured this week on the Not Just Jazz Network to amplify the band's impact further and reach within the jazz and world music communities This partnership highlights their continued growth and presence within the international music scene allowing listeners to discover the magic of Saint O's genre-blending sound "Saint O brings a flare of exciting rhythms to the heart of its audience combining flavors of music that audiences go wild for it truly is an experience to be a part of," says Jaijai Jackson For more information, to listen to One Life To Live, or to purchase the album, visit saintomusic.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004622386349 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/saint_o66?igsh=MWtlbnAzcG9sM28xcw== Jermain St. Omer, Saint O, 1 416-948-5969, [email protected] Do not sell or share my personal information: Alice Diop’s unnerving fiction feature is based on the true case of a Senegalese immigrant accused in the French court of murdering her 15-month-old daughter The severity and poise of this calmly paced movie its emotional reserve and moral seriousness – and the elusive implied confessional dimension concerning Diop herself – make it an extraordinary experience a bestselling author and academic who lives in Paris and is heading to the town of Saint Omer to write what her publishers hope will be some commercially delicious literary reportage about a shocking criminal case Laurence Coly (superbly played by Guslagie Malanda) is a woman on trial for murdering her 15-month-old daughter by leaving her on the beach to be drowned by the incoming tide who relied on the same argument and whose 2015 trial was attended by Diop allows Diop to dramatise the pure astonishment of the court and the French secular state at Coly’s defence Despite conceding the prosecution’s version of events in every particular she is not pleading guilty and advancing her “sorcery” argument as a mitigating circumstance of She is – crucially – pleading not guilty; Coly wishes to walk free on the grounds that “sorcery” is a legitimate alternative culprit which white westerners should exert themselves to understand faintly Akermanesque flashbacks about Rama’s own youth and the unhappiness of her mother Free newsletterTake a front seat at the cinema with our weekly email filled with all the latest news and all the movie action that matters Read moreDiop’s film could be said to be on the defence’s side in that while she shows the eloquent closing argument from the defence lawyer Maître Vaudenay (Aurélia Petit) addressed directly into the camera and to us she does not show the corresponding final speech from the prosecutor (Robert Cantarella) and in fact cuts off some of his bruising cross-examination to show Rama unhappily alone later in her hotel room But Diop does show plenty of interrogative questioning from the court president (a composed lucid performance from Valérie Dréville) which utterly demolishes her “sorcery” argument Could it be that both Coly’s crime and her defence are an existential refusal of her fate, a radical, cruel, bloodstained gesture of transgression and dissent, as a black woman in the white first world, yearning for a western education and western status, but somehow a mendicant with a baby? Does Diop wish us to see Coly as the new equivalent of Pierre Rivière the outsider criminal discovered by Michel Foucault Or is the film rather a fictionalised working through of Diop’s own complex turbulent feelings of revulsion and sympathy as she herself sat in the public gallery Saint Omer is released on 3 February in UK cinemas and is screening now at cinemas in Australia Reviews In 2016, the accomplished documentary filmmaker Alice Diop sat in the courtroom in the town of Saint-Omer listening to the chilling testimony of Fabienne Kabou a French-Senegalese woman accused of killing her infant daughter Kabou breast-fed the baby before placing her on the sand of the Berck-sur-Mer beach Kabou’s answers (“It was simpler that way”) were ambiguous and ultimately unsatisfying Kabou was examined by psychiatrists and was declared paranoid but well enough to stand trial Kabou spoke of evil forces threatening her baby was drawn to attend the trial almost like a magnetic force Kabou’s testimony made Diop reflect upon her own life as well as the experience of being “othered” in the land of her birth “Saint Omer,” Diop’s first narrative feature is the result of this powerful personal experience “I wanted to recreate my experience of listening to another woman’s story while interrogating myself The narrative had to trace a series of emotional states that can lead to catharsis It’s like accelerated psychotherapy.” The sense of Laurence as “other,” as something outside the “normal” realm of French life Much of the screenplay was taken from the actual court transcripts of the original trial all as Rama’s emotional life disintegrates bombarded by emotions about the baby in her womb and the experience of being an outsider (even though she was born in France) Kagame’s work in these scenes is poignant and painful The true crime aspect bleeds into the personal and the personal is brought back into the courtroom The two-way flow is the rhythm of “Saint Omer,” making the film the opposite of a sensationalistic portrayal of a real-life crime “I don’t understand [Fabienne Kabou] because I didn’t understand her at the trial that makes me ask questions about myself.” Asking “why did this happen?” is almost irrelevant in the face of all the evidence Fabienne Kabou came to France from Senegal to attend university and her thesis studies focused on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein In “Saint Omer,” when Laurence discloses this to the court even more disbelief than the reaction to her crime can’t fathom why an immigrant from Senegal would be interested in an Austrian philosopher born in the 19th century Their incomprehension is deeply insulting to anyone with intellectual curiosity and an interest in learning outside the scope of personal experience They all think she’s lying about her thesis topic Perhaps the judge and lawyers are unfamiliar with Wittgenstein’s focus on the limits of language expressed in his famous: “Whereof one cannot speak and it is these echoes that are trying to speak to us “Saint Omer” shows us how to listen Sheila O’Malley has written for The New York Times She’s written numerous booklet essays and video-essays for the Criterion Collection and has a regular column at Liberties Journal She’s a member of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics She’s been reviewing films on RogerEbert.com since 2013 Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here A fire broke out in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the town of Saint-Om France: A major fire broke out at a historic church in northern France early Monday At around 4:30 am (0230 GMT) a fire broke out in the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the northern town of Saint-Omer Get exclusive content with Gulf News WhatsApp channel Thanks to the efforts of 90 firefighters the fire had been contained by Monday morning a representative of the prefecture told AFP "My thoughts are with the Catholics and the people of Saint-Omer," Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said on X a fire broke out in the spire of the mediaeval cathedral in the northern French city of Rouen during renovation work Get the latest news and updates straight to your inbox UK mulls visa restrictions on Pakistani students Spain discovers new grid failure on day of blackout Spain blackouts: ​​Disinformation drive vs renewables Spain opens probe after cable theft halts trains French filmmaker Alice Diop poses for a portrait to promote “Saint Omer” in New York on Jan This image released by Neon shows Guslagie Malanda in a scene from “Saint Omer.” (Neon via AP) This image released by Neon shows Kayije Kagame in a scene from “Saint Omer.” (Neon via AP) French documentary filmmaker Alice Diop made an unusual decision She decided to travel to a town in Northern France to watch the trial of a Senegalese woman who one night in 2013 left her 15-month-old daughter on the beach to die Diop spoke to The Associated Press this week about her intentions for the film the “invisible women” at its heart and the unexpected catharsis she found that she wanted to also give to audiences Remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity AP: Why do you think you were compelled to go to the trial DIOP: I went to the trial because I had a very strong intuition I’m going to go to the trial and make a film about it.’ I think as a woman What struck me was a sentence that the defendant said to the police ‘Why did you kill your daughter?’ she said ‘I laid my daughter on the sand because I wanted the sea to take her away.’ For the French psychoanalytic dimension because in French the mother and the sea are the same word (mère and mer) I had the fantasy that she offered her daughter to a mother that was more powerful than she felt It is this imagery of this mythological concept that became a magnet for me But during the five days that I listened to this trial I had no idea that it was going to draw me to the deepest AP: Having a child myself viscerally changed how I processed movies and stories about children in distress as a mother thinking about a story like this But it is true that my partner was very concerned by my obsession with this story could be so fascinated by this story of a Black woman that had killed her child I’m going to tell you something very personal I actually had a very deep postpartum depression when my child was a baby And I believe that this trial is what helped me heal out of that depression We can certainly shift to talking more about the film DIOP: It’s less dangerous if we talk about the film AP: The idea of the invisible woman comes up often Can you talk about the significance of that DIOP: I think it’s a very central point of the film It frames and puts light on the woman that nobody listened to as my mother and all the mothers of this generation of immigrant women are women that the cinema never showed or talked about This is what determined one of the most important concepts of this film which is those very long one takes so that the audience would finally have the opportunity to intensely observe and listen to these women for the first time and it is also what drove me to want to make cinema to put those woman in the center of visibility when nobody else did it and to understand the complexity of the character rather than the cliché AP: The score is also sparse but impactful to evoke the theatricality and the myth of emotion that I wanted to bring to the film a group of women together wanting to observe and watch this strange phenomenon that took place the Nina Simone song (“Little Girl Blue”) to me is the voice that comes and brings consolation and soothing to everything that we just witnessed AP: It is surprising to be able to find catharsis in such a horrifying case DIOP: The film works very hard in withholding the emotion There is a liberation of that emotion when we have the lawyer’s closing argument toward the end nobody can hold the emotion anymore and what people feel is no longer the story of the film was to give the audience the specter of personal experience as if they had followed the trial themselves and I know lots of women who watch it are completely overwhelmed with emotions Director Alice Diop wisely avoids offering a neat solution to Saint Omer‘s exploration of a mother who murders her child Saint Omer, directed by Alice Diop. Limited release as of January 13. Boston MFA Museum screening on February 19. Harvard Film Archive’s retrospective of Diop’s films from March 25 through April 10 the French director Alice Diop’s feature film debut reinforces her assertion that “all my films exist at the frontier where the two [fiction and documentary] meet.” (The five documentaries which built her reputation on the international festival circuit — Danton’s Death  We – are now streaming on MUBI.)  From one perspective Saint Omer could be classified as a true crime narrative It was inspired by Diop’s real-life fascination with the case of Fabienne Kabou a Senegalese immigrant who killed her 15-month-old daughter by leaving her to drown on a beach Diop saw a surveillance camera photo of Kabou at Paris’ Gare du Nord She decided to travel to the French town of Saint-Omer to attend her trial she ordered a set to be built in the actual courthouse where Kabou had gone on trial She shot the film with long takes based on the trial’s transcripts so the actors lived out the trial’s structure of events Diop also created a fictionalized alter ego She spends each day at the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) a young woman who immigrated to France from Senegal at the age of eight where she had studied philosophy (studying Wittgenstein) and embarked on a relationship with a much older white man he refused to publicly acknowledge their relationship Luc allowed Coly to attend his daughter’s wedding and he helped her out after he impregnated her and defense attorney mount pressure on Coly to tell her story in a way that makes sense But her version of events never fully adds up She claims not to understand her own behavior even suggesting that she might’ve been influenced by sorcery Rama appears to be far more happily assimilated into French life but as she observes the trial she grows increasingly unsettled Diop has always treated the subjects in her films with great care Towards Tenderness was based on interviews with young men about their experiences with love But their faces were kept offscreen; actors sat silently at a café or drove through the red light district as the subjects’ voices played onscreen The film digs beneath the surface of conventional machismo such as talk about “bitches,” in order to have its subjects talk about the difficulty of growing up in a culture with no real models for a French version of Black masculinity Saint Omer avoids the sensationalism of true crime drama through its sympathy for Coly as well as its formal rigor The director films three major scenes of testimony from different angles and camera positions The first one emphasizes Coly’s uncertainty and anxiety Her head is tilted to the side; even though the judge is offscreen the young woman is clearly aiming her gaze in that direction The camera positions in the later testimony scenes move closer to Coly Rama evidently sees a great deal of herself in Coly She’s a Black woman of Senegalese descent in a relationship with a white man Four months pregnant when the trial begins Saint Omer offers a glance into Rama’s professional life as an academic As part of her lecture on Marguerite Duras and the film Hiroshima she shows students images of a French woman who was punished for collaboration during World War II Diop’s framing of the lecture hall self-consciously mirrors her view of the courtroom Rama is not on trial – in her job she teaches French history to college students But the long shots of a room full of people looking at her are eerily similar to the images of Coly on trial Diop proves herself to be a master of pacing and timing Frederick Wiseman’s courtroom films were no doubt models for Saint Omer and she shares his skill at maintaining drama through long takes but Guslagie Malanda gives a remarkably natural performance that never settles on one interpretation of her character’s personality but the film never indicates that we must arrive at a definitive explanation Diop avoids presenting Saint Omer as a mystery with a neat solution compared to the experience she’s going through the question of Coly’s guilt seems almost irrelevant Even her well-intentioned lawyers wind up patronizing her Rama plans to write an article called “Medea Castaway.” She watches Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 Medea in her hotel Saint Omer compares Coly’s plight with the classic Greek myth in which a mother betrays her maternal instincts and kills her children It ends up questioning if that archetypal tragedy has all that much to say about the lives of contemporary women The myth has been interpreted in various ways by feminists as well as playwrights ancient and modern (there are filmed versions by Lars von Trier as well as Pasolini) Up until the murders Medea had lived a full life with Jason — including a decade of marriage and giving birth to seven sons and a daughter The Greek dramatists who adapted Medea’s story offered conflicting versions of how (and why) she came to murder her children Saint Omer suggests that reducing the complexities of a woman’s life to a single violent act is itself a form of violence a point that Euripides makes by having the gods whisk Media away from her vengeful human judges at the end of the play Steve Erickson writes about film and music for Gay City News, Slant Magazine, the Nashville Scene, Trouser Press, and other outlets. He also produces electronic music under the tag callinamagician. His latest album, The Bloodshot Eye of Horus, was released in November 2022, and is available to stream here Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" The Lady’s Dressing Room (1732) BY JONATHAN SWIFT Five hours (and who can do it less in?) By haughty Celia… but this Littlefield review has convinced me to make the purchase your comments reek of what is wrong in today's society and also if entitlement About Us Advertising/Underwriting Syndication Media Resources Editors and Contributors © 2025 The Arts Fuse. All Rights Reserved. Site by AuthorBytes SearchMan arrested in France related to fire that destroyed historic Catholic churchLog InSubscribeThe Christian Post To enjoy our website, you'll need to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Please click here to learn how You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience 2024Flames engulf the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the town of Saint-Omer near Calais | Screenshot: Twitter/@PeterSweden7Authorities in France arrested a man in his 30s on Tuesday in connection to the fire that destroyed a historic Catholic church in northern France earlier this week Footage circulated on social media showing flames engulfing the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the town of Saint-Omer near Calais at approximately 4:30 a.m. local time on Monday, according to Le Monde The blaze caused the church's bell tower to collapse Approximately 120 firefighters responded to the incident and contained the blaze which caused no injuries but collapsed the church's bell tower Officials also said about 50 nearby residents were evacuated out of caution Is this definitely arson? https://t.co/QSzNGKfk3h "My thoughts are with the Catholics and the people of Saint-Omer," Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in a post on X "An investigation is under way to determine the exact cause of the fire."  Authorities announced Tuesday that they arrested an unidentified man known to police "for similar acts" in the past, Saint-Omer prosecutor Mehdi Benbouzid told AFP He said the suspect had been living in a hostel The investigation found signs of forced entry noting that he is considering a charge of "destruction of property by dangerous means." social media promptly erupted with speculation that the fire was another example of the spate of arson attacks against French churches in recent years Among those raising the question was X CEO Elon Musk The neo-Gothic Church of the Immaculate Conception was completed in 1859 and restored in 2018. The fire comes weeks after another blaze engulfed Rouen's historic cathedral on July 11 in a scene reminiscent of the fire that caused catastrophic damage to the iconic Notre-Dame de Paris in 2019 According to the L'Observatoire de la Christianophobie — or the Observatory of Christianophobia which is a Paris-based organization that documents and highlights anti-Christian acts around the world — acts of arson and other crimes against churches have been on the rise in recent years After Monday's fire and the Rouen cathedral fire in July, a diagram went viral on social media that purported to show the many alleged acts of arson against churches in France. Reuters reports that the post was misleading because it also included acts of theft and vandalism Jon Brown is a reporter for The Christian Post. Send news tips to jon.brown@christianpost.com Help keep The Christian Post free for everyone By making a recurring donation or a one-time donation of any amount you're helping to keep CP's articles free and accessible for everyone Hope you’ll give us another try and check out some other articles. Return to homepage. 2023Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanda star in Alice Diop’s film.Illustration by Anna PariniSave this storySave this storySave this storySave this storyIn November a baby girl was found drowned on the beach at Berck-sur-Mer She had moved in with a much older man; he was the father of the girl who died One of those who attended the subsequent trial Diop’s work has been in documentary; now we have her first feature “Saint Omer,” which is clearly and closely inspired by the case of Kabou and which retains the attentiveness—the patient ardor—of a good documentary and includes not just lengthy scenes of cross-examination but also during which one character stares or glares at another The defendant in the film is Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) she admits to having caused the death of her daughter but finds it hard to explain how she could have done such a thing “I hope this trial will give me the answer”—words not often heard in the mouth of an accused person told the police that she was the victim of sorcery cursed by the “evil eye” and hallucinations She also describes herself as a “Cartesian.” (Warning: do not use that line anywhere other than France.) Some of her statements to the frustration of the prosecuting counsel (Robert Cantarella) and very well played by Xavier Maly as a paragon of self-pity and slyness (Molière would recognize the type.) Of his relationship with Laurence “I would go as far as to say that we were happy He found it convenient to keep her at arm’s length from his everyday life; it was as if she We can sense “Saint Omer” beginning to mount the case for mitigation and setting before us a young Black woman corroded both by subtle indifference informing the court that Laurence aimed to write a doctoral thesis on Wittgenstein an African woman interested in an Austrian philosopher from the early twentieth century—why not choose someone closer to her own culture?” by the tall and stately figure of Rama (Kayije Kagame) For the first fifteen minutes of the movie we are given the deliberate impression that she is destined to be the heroine We see her at work—she is a writer and lecturer—and with her loved ones before she packs a bag and sets off to attend Laurence’s trial Most viewers will be asking themselves: what is Rama doing here there is no sign that they are acquainted with each other with a Senegalese background; both have (or had) a white partner in France; both have tricky rapports with their mothers; and both seem simultaneously proud and bowed down by the weight of the world and understandably harrowed by the fate of little Élise although Rama is not called to testify in court she is there to bear moral and emotional witness to the saga of Laurence when the philosophy professor takes her seat after giving evidence Rama stares at her with silent and sizzling contempt the professor would burst into flames.) More ambiguous is the sight of Laurence turning to gaze who is thoroughly freaked out; is there solidarity in that smile Our reaction to events in court is bound to be nudged and shaped by hers but one could argue that Laurence’s story is so dramatically strong that it doesn’t require such backup It’s as though Diop didn’t entirely trust us to read the narrative as we should teaching students about the French women who were paraded through the streets for alleged collaboration with the Germans; as a bonus we are then treated to clips from Pasolini’s “Medea” (1969) is thereby invested with a certain nobility; infanticide is raised to the level of myth the defending counsel (Aurélia Petit) proclaims that all women are monsters—“terribly human monsters.” All of them The most instructive thing about “Saint Omer” is what it omits Fabienne Kabou was sentenced to twenty years in prison for killing her daughter The court was in no doubt as to the severity of the crime chooses not to reveal either the verdict or the sentence; if you are unfamiliar with the original case you might well believe that Laurence has been acquitted and set free in this finely controlled and subtly controlling film (If you already regard the French judicial system as constitutionally racist so much the better.) Her parable has its desired effect somehow liberated by the telling of her tale whose actions were driven by the forces of Western society you almost end up forgetting that there was a crime book editors have never enjoyed the cinematic popularity of zombies Maybe sensitive viewers would be traumatized by the brutal slashing of a paragraph and the best place to start is a new documentary “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb.” It details the professional alliance between Caro the biographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson who has edited Caro’s writing for half a century and who now provides a crisp summation of their method: “He does the work The movie is directed by Gottlieb’s daughter “They said the work between a writer and an editor is too private,” she tells us (I sniff an opportunity here for an underground trade: basement peepshows where you feed a nickel into a slot and watch one guy remove another guy’s dangling participles.) Surprisingly by the end of “Turn Every Page,” the interdict is relaxed and we get to watch this pair of noble gentlemen—whose combined age is a hundred and seventy-eight—stroll around the offices of Alfred A like elderly knights who have mislaid their lances as they sit side by side and attack the typewritten pages of Caro’s text and overlaid with Chet Baker singing “Do It the Hard Way.” The way is still hard because Caro has yet to complete the fifth and final volume of the Johnson project So all-consuming has this been that he and his wife once spent three years in the Texas Hill Country where he could root himself in the background of his subject (“Can’t you write a biography of Napoleon?” Ina asked.) Gottlieb though aware of “heading faster and faster towards not being at all,” waits and waits is all the better for its flecks of personal pain—tares among the wheat and Gottlieb suffered deeply from the chiding of their furious fathers who reckoned that their sons would come to naught and who have since been proved magnificently wrong The audience for “Turn Every Page,” I’d guess and New Yorkers—each bearing a copy of “The Power Broker,” Caro’s 1974 book on Robert Moses whittled down by Gottlieb to the size of a mere warehouse will be left agape by the revelation that “Catch-22” was supposed to be “Catch-18” until Gottlieb upped the number who will be brought to the edge of their seats roused by the single combat between the movie’s heroes “think a semicolon is worth fighting a civil war about.” Only civil An earlier version of this article misquoted a line in “Saint Omer” French filmmaker Alice Diop’s complex courtroom drama challenges viewers to listen to, rather than judge, a mother’s plight. Saint Omer begins and ends the same way, with the sounds of a mother’s breath layered over a black screen. Exhausted, worn down by not just the weight of the children they carry but also the expectations thrust upon them, these mothers labor on, waiting for their final rest. But between these gasps for air, Saint Omer feels almost like a lifeless affair, taking place almost entirely in an antiseptic French courtroom. Throughout, director Alice Diop crafts a clear-eyed ode to immigrant mothers, in all their complexity. Saint Omer brings viewers into the courtroom via Rama (Kayije Kagame), an author of some success researching her next novel, an adaptation of the myth of Medea, the mother who slaughtered her children in an act of defiance. She’s come to learn about Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), a young Senegalese woman accused of killing her infant daughter. While most movies would condemn Dumontet simply by placing him against our protagonist, a much younger immigrant woman, Saint Omer has no interest in playing to our sympathies. From the outset of the trial, Coly admits that she did indeed kill her daughter Elise.  Late one night, we learn, Coly took the child to the ocean and laid her on the beach. She went back to her room and slept peacefully until the waves took the girl away, only for the corpse to be found by a fisherman.  Throughout the trial, Coly is caught in lie after lie, attributing her actions to some ill-defined sorcery and refusing to say more. Even when the judge seems to give space for the defendant to explain herself, Coly refuses, answering “I don’t know” to questions about her difficulties in the French academy or strained relationship with her parents in Senegal. Instead of forcing viewers’ responses, Diop puts a faith in her performers that pays off in dividends. Instead of forcing viewers’ responses, Diop puts faith in her performers, a faith that pays off in dividends. Malanda plays Coly as a pillar of quiet strength. She refuses to look away from the judge or Dumontet or even the prosecutor as they level charges against her and narrate her life to her. But even as her face stays still, Malanda allows her chest to quiver in fear and frustration as it tries to hold the few breaths that snuck through her visage. Conversely, Diop does use music to suggest a sympathy for Seynabou that grows in Rama during Coly’s trial. With the exception of Nina Simone’s “Little Girl Blue,” skillfully deployed at the movie’s climax, the film’s score consists of a capella music that foregrounds breath, highlighting human vulnerability and persistence. For viewers catching Saint Omer during its January theatrical release in the United States, the most important part is perhaps the trial’s end. That’s when the defender looks directly at the camera and makes her case. “This is the story of a phantom woman,” she declares. “A woman whom nobody sees. Whom nobody knows.” The defender goes on to describe a Senegalese woman tormented by French society, treated as worthless, driven mad, and forced to finally kill her own daughter. Joe George is a pop culture writer whose work has appeared in Polygon, Slate, Den of Geek, and elsewhere. You can follow him on Twitter at @jageorgeii and read more at joewriteswords.com. Sign-up for our free weekly e-mail newsletter. The Progressive Inc. publishes The Progressive magazine plus Progressive.org and Public Schools Advocate. © 2025 • The Progressive, Inc. • 931 E. Main Street, Suite 10 • Madison, Wisconsin 53703 • (608) 257-4626 © Reverse Shot, 2025. All rights reserved Support forthis publication has been provided through the National Endowment for the Arts. Moving Image Source was developed with generous and visionary support from the Hazen Polsky Foundation, in memory of Joseph H. Hazen. What she witnessed in the courtroom left Diop wondering how a mother could kill her child Saint Omer puts a spin on the courtroom drama by centering another woman’s perspective of the trial Rama (Kayije Kagame) is a pregnant young academic and writer who—like Diop did—travels to the northern French town of Saint Omer to attend the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) “It was the only way I saw to get inside the heart of the subject,” says Diop of her choice to frame the narrative around Rama Diop adds that she used the original transcripts from Kabou’s proceedings to inform the script and says that the courtroom setting of the film forces viewers to learn about a character’s soul through “objective facts,” cementing the mystery of Laurence A common theme in Diop’s work is the shedding of light on that which has been “invisible” in society this partly includes the marginalization of Black and migrant women shaped the next generation of women like myself so the film is about these two dimensions,” says Diop “Motherhood as a universal concept and that particularity of exile and Black women.” Laurence is shown to be an intelligent woman who was sent from Senegal—a former French colony—to study in France saddled with immense expectations from her separated parents Laurence’s mother expects her to speak perfect French and takes pride in how presentable her daughter is Laurence loses favor and the financial support of her father when she decides to pursue philosophy instead of studying law It is in this vulnerable state that she meets Luc Dumontet with a pregnant daughter closer to Laurence’s age Luc fathers a daughter with Laurence but his neglectful absence means that she gives birth at home and doesn’t register the birth of their daughter Like many characters Diop is concerned with Read More: 12 International Movies to Watch This Awards Season Rama has much less to say with words and conveys emotions through pained expressions and labored breathing The two women have a few commonalities but they notably share complex relationships with their mothers Diop says that as she watched Kabou’s trial unfold other women in the courtroom collectively seemed to ponder their own connection to motherhood and it was then that she realized the story was universal “I understood that my profound emotion while witnessing this trial was absolutely shared by every woman around me in that room,” she says Kayije Kagame in 'Saint Omer'Courtesy of EF NeonIn September, Diop made history by becoming the first Black woman to represent France in the Oscars’ international category—a feat she says she didn’t expect “even in my wildest dreams.” But beyond the idea of representational firsts the win confirmed to Diop that Black stories can be “universal.” Since the film debuted at Venice Film Festival where it won the Silver Lion–the festival’s runner-up prize she says it has resonated with viewers and critics of all ethnicities and genders she was able to view Kabou as a nuanced person rather than as someone who was solely part of a murder case the most surprising aspect of the story is the accused’s claims of sorcery Whether this is a symptom of mental illness or a supernatural truth that Western justice systems cannot accept Perhaps this is why Diop’s format—the movie comes across as half a documentary on Kabou and half a drama about Laurence—proves so successful: it asks us to look beyond binaries of truth and lie When asked what she thought about Kabou’s eventual verdict Diop says that she was simply not interested “The verdict is in step with the justice system But cinema looked at it from a different angle,” she says Her film serves to unpack how a person is led to commit such a horrific act is less about a prison sentence and more about “the ability to listen and understand.” That is why the director says she chose to omit the verdict from her story instead staying with Rama in the aftermath We carry within us the traces of our mothers and our daughters who But we are terribly human monsters.” Write to Armani Syed at armani.syed@time.com Diop discusses her aesthetic choices across editing “Wow, big question!” Alice Diop exclaims in English when her translator explains one of my prompts for her reflection. Such are the only questions worth posing in regards to Diop’s narrative feature debut, Saint Omer It’s a work of deceptive simplicity that gradually reveals a structure of aesthetic and intellectual rigor alike The film bears many traces of Diop’s background in documentary Saint Omer takes its inspirations from the trial of Fabienne Kabou a French-Senegalese woman who faced charges in 2016 for murdering her daughter on a beach Diop attended the trial and worked much of the transcript into the case against fictionalized defendant Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) The facts of the incident emerge quickly in the legal proceedings but the filmmaker complicates any simplistic verdict on Laurence with her methodical unraveling of the countless layers of indignity and indifference shown toward her subject Yet Diop doesn’t limit her vantage point solely to Rama (Kayije Kagame) the professor surreptitiously observing the trial from the spectator seating area The personal entry point expands beyond even the political dimensions of race or national origin and arrives at an interrogation of the mythological elements of Medea By elevating the figure of the Black woman to a place of centrality and universality in her work Diop confronts centuries of representational neglect head-on Saint Omer scintillatingly suggests the courtroom is but one institution where justice is proclaimed but not always served and her subtle yet powerful aesthetic choices across editing Your film circles themes explored by Marguerite Duras How did you decide to foreground that influence with an excerpt of Hiroshima Mon Amour That film opens with such a powerful repeated line: “You saw nothing in Hiroshima.” What does it mean to you to see, really see something or someone? To see, for me, I think the answer is in my films. It’s a question I can’t answer theoretically. I can only answer materially. What I see is in the films. I propose my films allow us to look from a specific place that hasn’t been much explored yet: that of a Black Frenchwoman, a European woman of the 21st century who’s 43 years old and is perhaps seeing with a greater intellectual maturity than she had 20 years ago. As I was watching your previous documentaries, I thought a lot about Frederick Wiseman and your shared fondness for looking inside institutions to understand individuals: the RER-B, the hospital, the courtroom. Is this film an extension of your background in sociology and anthropology? You’d never been to court before attending the trial of Fabienne Kabou. How did you come to see and understand the space of the courtroom? Does France also share a “true crime” obsession like the United States? The film feels like such a powerful rebuke to that genre’s fallacy that we can understand or comprehend someone who transgresses simply by learning all the facts. Costuming in contemporary films doesn’t get a lot of discussion. Can you talk about how you came to dress Laurence in a brown that almost makes her fade into the courtroom wall, while Rama stands out in brighter colors? How do you make it feel real but also communicate something thematically about the characters? You’ve talked about using long takes to give your viewers freedom. What guided you in determining when and where to cut? The editing process with my editor was so organic and intuitive that it’s really too hard for me to try to remember what guided our choices. In fact, it’s practically impossible. It has to do with the internal breathing of the film. I think that’s what guided us, but I really can’t be more specific because it’s asking me to actually go back into the state of trance that we edited this film in. How did you approach the sound design? We’ve talked about the images, but the last element of the narrative that we experience is the sound of breathing. The breathing, for me, is a way for us to be very close to Rama, a character who doesn’t speak but whose breathing we hear. Her breathing says so much about what she sees, the intensity of her listening, and her dangerous closeness to this woman Laurence Coly. There’s something very physical about her listening, and there’s something that’s also very physical in the film for the spectators. I think that the breathing makes this cerebral, rather intellectual, film sensual. One of the film’s primary aims is to invest the universal in the figure of the Black woman. Now that you’ve taken the film around the world for a few months, have you seen any more culturally specific responses emerge? Have these reactions given you a new lens through which to view the film? The underlying question of your last film, We, was “how do we build we or us?” in the context of France. Is this film still grappling with that question? Has it changed your answer? Well, I never claimed to have the answer, and that’s a good thing. Because this question of “we,” of “us,” is so floating and loose, you can’t define it. I didn’t define it in the four years that it took to make We. And though in making Saint Omer, I kept questioning and interrogating it, I certainly didn’t define it. The goal is not to set a definition for it. Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based film journalist. His interviews, reviews, and other commentary on film also appear regularly in Slashfilm, Decider, and Little White Lies. document.getElementById("comment").setAttribute( "id", "ac07712816c12b5d8444be1e03981fbd" );document.getElementById("facec42938").setAttribute( "id", "comment" ); Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Join Cal State Fullerton’s French Program Thursday, March 14, for a screening of the film “Saint Omer” (2022) by Alice Diop. The New French and Francophone Film Series event will take place at 7 p.m. in Humanities and Social Sciences Building, Room 110. Interweaving complex themes of mother-daughter bonds, immigrant alienation and postcolonial trauma into a piercing portrait of two mysteriously connected women, filmmaker Diop forgoes mere questions of guilt and innocence in order to plumb the unsettling unknowability of the human soul. Do you have news you’d like to share with the campus? traced the lives of people from the suburbs along the commuter rail into Paris from white aristocrats preparing for a hunt to a car mechanic from Mali Diop experienced her departure from Aulnay-sous-Bois just 30 minutes by train from the Sorbonne a cleaving wherein she was handed a knife by French society but pressed down with her own hands “really reside in this guilt that I feel of having integrated this French injunction of separating myself from working class neighborhoods.” a princess uprooted from her homeland of Colchis (modern Georgia) and brought by her husband where she is regarded suspiciously as a foreign sorceress a “barbarian” with “black looks.” Medea is better remembered for murdering her sons in an act of revenge against her adulterous husband Diop has brought her full story to bear in a modern retelling of the myth newly fused into the true story of Fabienne Kabou a Senegalese woman accused of leaving her baby on a beach to drown in 2013 Kabou is now Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) a philosophy student whose dreams—professional and romantic—are dashed under the weight of French racism Her teachers openly wonder if European philosophy is a suitable subject for her and give her poor marks and here Laurence claims she had been under the influence of black magic What else can explain how this woman so full of promise—“she talks in very sophisticated French,” the newspapers exclaim—could have committed such a monstrous Diop portrays Laurence as a woman whose parents’ ambitions required she leave Senegal for France Much of the film takes place in the town of Saint Omer It is only a courtroom drama in the most literal sense The testimonies contained within Saint Omer give it a polyphonic quality allowing Diop to tell Laurence’s story as one of many castaways daughters handed over to the arms of the sea restless with the question of whether “making it” was worth a journey that leaves so many others at the bottom of the sea We follow the events of the film through Rama (Kayije Kagame) a French Senegalese writer who watches Laurence’s case from the courtroom gallery with more anxiety than the accused How close was she to being that little girl left on a cold beach in northern France taking her last breath with no one but the moon left to witness This is a film about mothers and daughters and the drama of Laurence’s case is interspersed with flashbacks from Rama’s point of view snapshots of her mother staring sullenly in a mirror before motherhood and all the sacrifices that come with it We know these sacrifices were worth it, that Rama turned out OK, because in one of the first scenes of the film, she is lecturing in a tony university hall on Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour are hanging on to her every word about the nature of art and Diop will shortly show us how much havoc it has wreaked on its bearer in which French women who had sex with Nazi occupiers were publicly stigmatized and forced to shave their hair “uses the power of her narrative to sublimate reality,” turning these women into humans “in a state of grace,” Rama explains who shortly thereafter makes her way to Saint Omer to cover the trial is likely plotting to do the same for Laurence—to turn this most reviled figure She plans to call the project Medea Castaway but her agent is worried people won’t get the reference “Doesn’t everyone know the story of Medea?” she asks him Kagame does not much sit in her seat as remain pressed against it as if awe were a wind pinning her to the nearest surface Laurence’s depravity is matched only by her elegance She performs lyrical monologues that sound fully formed; she pauses only for dramatic effect When the judge (Valérie Dréville) asks Laurence why she killed her child she responds that she does not know and adds without stopping to think: “I hope the trial will give me the answer.” When the prosecutor reprimands her for her “persistent ambiguity,” she responds: “Some things Only in the trial is Laurence able perhaps to achieve what she longed for when she first came to Paris “I wanted to leave my mark,” she tells the judge “I dreamed of being a great philosopher.” In class The same professor testifies she found it odd that Laurence became interested in the philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein: “Why not someone closer to her own culture?” tells the court her daughter must be cursed as “nothing else could explain her failure.” Yet is racism itself not a kind of witchcraft one that can turn a genius like Laurence into a supposedly underperforming student we are exposed to discrepancies between oral and written accounts a common occurrence in trials but one with broader implications in a postcolonial context diplomas—becomes the colonizer’s magic wand But Laurence’s suffering does not win Rama’s unqualified sympathy We see her visceral disgust at Laurence’s crime (and at Odile’s pride in her daughter’s elegant conduct at trial): It’s not only morning sickness that makes Rama rush to the toilet to throw up her lunch of her lover’s shame at having a mixed-race child with a Black mistress of a self-hating mother enamored by all things French—and that might be enough to sway the well-meaning white people in the courtroom who tear up by movie’s end But Rama does not absolve Laurence of agency; to do so The only two Black women there to hear the trial during which Odile expresses disappointment at Laurence’s rare loss of temper that morning in court “Education and politesse are the two most important things,” she says over her meal Her daughter must always show that “she was well brought up.” The woman is ghastly she looks at Rama and guesses she’s pregnant It’s one of the most disquieting scenes in the film for the alternative—motherly instinct—is too upsetting to contemplate from someone who maybe didn’t drown her daughter but hoped the tide would sweep her up all the same Euripides’s choice to emphasize Medea’s foreign-ness has made his play a useful vessel for postcolonial reinterpretation Countless retellings of Medea have reframed her “barbarian” status as a foreign princess among the Greeks along modern racial and colonial lines In a South African reworking by Guy Butler she is a Tembu princess seduced by the Jason figure she is a Bono princess to Jason’s Portuguese slave trader and ivory hunter Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea (1995) she is a revolutionary who helps win an independent Chicano state the need to understand what could drive a woman to this unspeakable crime becomes a way for everyone in Laurence’s life to testify to the injustices she has faced and the cruelty she has endured Laurence’s mother pushed her toward France and all it symbolized; she wanted her to become a sophisticated European woman. Well, Medea’s story, it bears remembering, is a European myth. Laurence studied the culture it sprang from like an obedient daughter, and imbibed all of its violences. She was, in the end, sunk by the very life raft her mother swore would save her. Print In 2016 filmmaker Alice Diop attended the trial of Fabienne Kabou who had admitted to killing her 15-month-old daughter Diop sat in a courtroom in the French town of Saint-Omer and listened as Kabou described leaving Adélaïde on the beach of Berck-sur-Mer where her body would be swallowed by the waves and later discovered by a fisherman That’s my default explanation because I have no other.” Shot over three weeks in the actual town of Saint-Omer, the film follows a literature professor named Rama (Kayije Kagame) who attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda). Laurence is, in essence, Kabou, while Rama is a fictional conduit for Diop herself. “Everything that happened as far as the trial is concerned is practically a verbatim transcript of the trial,” Diop explains, speaking over Zoom with the help of a translator. “[Kabou’s] style of language and her interaction with the prosecutor and the people in the court was so amazing to me, and that is in the film also. The film was born of the texture of that exchange and the quality of that dialogue that I could not have made up even if I was the greatest dialogist.” She adds that including fictionalized aspects “allowed us to explore all these questions inside the documentary part of the film.” Movies Jafar Panahi’s “No Bears,” Todd Field’s “Tár” and Joanna Hogg’s “The Eternal Daughter” are among our critic’s favorite films of the year “Because of the colonization by the French in Africa the French they speak is not everyday French,” Malanda explains She’s a bit like an alien with this language.” “The greatness of her vocabulary and her expression allowed her to create a distance with the crime that she committed,” Diop adds “Like in a great novel where you become engaged in understanding why it happened or how it happened rather than be focused just on the horrible crime.” Diop never called “Action!” or “Cut!” Instead she simply turned on the cameras and gave the actors space to genuinely experience the dialogue “I was not interested in fabricating a fiction but in capturing a truth in the emotion and an intensity,” Diop explains “Those very long one-shots allowed me to capture that as we were not re-creating but living the actual moments I wanted to create the feeling that the actors were actually living the experience Guslagie Malanda in “Saint Omer.” (Neon) She adds “My experience when I was watching the trial was I was absolutely riveted by the power of emotion and the intensity of this trial All my effort and my stage direction [was] geared towards bringing the audience to have the same intensity of experience I had.” Malanda describes it as “like my own trial.” To prepare for the role she and the filmmakers spent a day observing the court case of a woman convicted of killing her husband Malanda noticed a distinct sense of fear in the woman when she was called upon to speak her name to the judge “I was her,” Malanda says of her character Television In Part 2 of Netflix’s French hit, immigrants take on a corrupting force: Call it classism, racism, colonialism or all of the above. By using the format of a drama to tell a factual story, Diop is able to arrive at an even more poignant version of the truth. For the filmmaker, who says she allows each project to dictate its own form, that truth is more powerful because it’s told with a Black woman at the heart of the story. Her “real, deep reason” for making “Saint Omer” was to present both Laurence and Rama as Black characters who go against stereotype and are thus relatable to any viewer. “I wanted to propose the universality of the Black body,” she says. “The questions that are brought out are universal. When women watch this film, whether they’re Black or white or whatever [race], they have the same rapport with the film. They have the same questions about their own daughter or mother relationships. In this way, the film is universal.” In making “Saint Omer,” Diop was searching for her own answers to these profound questions. She’s continuing to search for them. But through the process of creating the film, Diop and her primarily female collaborators did uncover things about themselves, as she hopes the viewers will do as well. “It was as if all of us women on the set were constantly haunted by the presence of our mothers and children and we were having this dialogue all the time with these ghostlike ideas,” Diop remembers. “It is as if all the things that we would not have dared to tell our mothers, the things we had thought, the things we were afraid of, all these things were coming up for all of us. It was like a collective psychotherapy.” At the end of shooting, the emotional intensity was so great, in fact, that Diop collapsed on the set. “I fainted, and they had to take me away to the hospital,” she says. “It was as if after three weeks I had given birth to a monster. And the baby monster became a film called ‘Saint Omer.’” Hollywood Inc. Entertainment & Arts Subscribe for unlimited accessSite Map The French director draws on her own experience in this story of a writer sitting in on the trial of a woman accused of murdering her own baby She is also pregnant and processing a tangle of emotions about what it is to be a mother Laurence (the remarkable Guslagie Malanda) a charismatic and eloquent Senegalese immigrant is serenely assured as a defendant in the murder trial but jarringly discordant when it comes to her experiences of motherhood Diop deftly depicts the two women as distorted mirror images of each other: Rama recognises something in Laurence even as she abhors her crime Saint Omer is in cinemas in the UK now and from 7 March in Australia This is the archive of The Observer up until 21/04/2025 The Observer is now owned and operated by Tortoise Media You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed We use cookies to personalize content and ads and to analyze our traffic and improve our service Coly’s linguistic and intellectual talents notwithstanding her ambition to leave her mark on the world is impeded by finances the stark racism of a philosophy professor unable to accept that an African woman condemned to what Jacques Derrida describes as the “monolingualism of the other” might wish to pursue a thesis on Wittgenstein Her mother refused to teach her Wolof so as to ease her assimilation by arming her with perfect French surprise: her trial becomes a press sensation not simply because of how awful her crime is but because of how educated she sounds to them Coly’s sophistication is the purchase of a profound and multivalent alienation that Diop’s film suggests as the price of assimilation Saint Omer’s courtroom stages an ethnographic drama that—by inquiring into Coly’s life and background and emphasizing her enduring foreignness within French society as a Senegalese-born woman—plumbs the female psyche with precision and poetic insight Diop’s film sounds a fearful note within the symphony of the psychic toll of tending to the young I arrived at this daring suggestion: perhaps Medea (and her heirs among whom Coly might be counted) is not so aberrant after all Perhaps all mothers have it within them to be monstrous and murderous The court proceedings come to us through the eyes of Rama As Rama bears witness to Coly in all her terrible beauty she finds herself grappling with how Medea’s template of mothering illuminates the complicated relationship she has with her own mother The vision of a novelist composing a narrative of a mother who has killed her child resonates strongly with Toni Morrison’s Beloved a book that asks what mothers choose and refuse to pass down to their children both for Morrison’s Sethe and Diop’s Laurence Coly is a refusal to hand over their beloved children to this world Might Coly’s crime be viewed as an act of grace from a mother trying to rescue her child from the psychic toll of living suspended between two worlds How might we reckon with a tormented mother who spirits her child away from life under what W Du Bois describes as “the veil”—that invisible yet tenacious set of limitations which may one day curtail her ambitions and make a mockery of her humanity by rendering her an ethnographic curiosity Even when I’m left baffled by who in this film’s trial is allowed to ask what Alice Diop’s restrained-yet-captivating drama–inspired by a real-life case–centers on Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda) a young Senegalese immigrant who committed the passive chilling infanticide of leaving her baby on the beach where the tide could take her away There’s very little doubt about the sequence of events and Laurence’s trial begins with her admitting she did indeed knowingly kill her child she’s still pleading not guilty: she did it so she feels that she can’t possibly bear sole responsibility Does Laurence truly believe she was cursed or did the detective who questioned her accidentally plant the seed of this particular defense She claims to have repeatedly called clairvoyants and her phone bill shows no record of these calls This alone could provide enough substance for a complex but Diop treats it as only the flashiest of her spinning plates When Laurence is backed into a corner and retreats into silence is that silence an admission of guilt or just a weary surrender or were they just attempts to shore up an already-collapsing sense of self-worth That last question is one we could ask of almost everyone in the film presents himself as sort of genially helpless as if he’s a bit shabby and overwhelmed but He has an answer for every accusation Laurence levels at him but while most of them sound reasonable enough that he somehow managed to just shyly stammer his way into a young girlfriend no one ever sees and a daughter the government isn’t even aware of he didn’t want to rock the boat by asking to bring Laurence to his older daughter’s wedding–but no one forced him to ask Laurence to cook for this wedding she couldn’t even attend even he may not know why he did these things; not letting himself think critically about his actions and one that pairs well with his more privileged Laurence says that she hopes the trial will reveal her to herself That revelation hurts him … but it’s easy to imagine how he’ll soon cocoon himself away from it The witness to all of this–to some extent our surrogate but really more Diop’s surrogate–is Rama (Kayije Kagame) a literary professor and writer who is second-generation French-Senegalese Her part of the story feels a little underdeveloped and Kagame isn’t quite as impressive as Malanda who draws in attention like a gravity well But even if this side of the film is slightly weaker it still feels like a necessary part of the whole Rama comes to the trial as a kind of elevated scavenger looking to use Laurence Coly’s story as the raw material for her retelling of Medea When she has lunch with Laurence’s mother without revealing this there’s a prickle of justified unease cold-blooded observer stripping this drama for parts she can use she can’t be: she’s tied to it It’s not just that she’s one of the few other Black faces in the courtroom–though that’s reason enough for Laurence’s mother to pick her out and try to befriend her It’s that she also moves through the world with some sense of Laurence’s intensely controlled loneliness She has intimate experience with the academic system that treated Laurence as more of a curiosity than a student she has a mother–and in another few months She’s not just watching to learn why Coly did what she did ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by BellinghamWP.com There’s an accepted objectivity to raw filmed footage It’s one of the strongest pieces of evidence that can be presented in a legal case and it is often easier to believe than human testimony a French filmmaker no stranger to raw footage in documentaries including Vers la tendresse (2016) and Nous (2020) charged with killing her infant daughter in 2013 Inspired to tell the story but without being able to film the actual events In Saint Omer — largely filmed as raw film footage the techniques of documentary applied to fiction —Diop is deeply conscious of her own subjectivity which in turn becomes an in for the audience is a writer whose immediate thought is that the case of a mother murdering her 15-month-old daughter would suit a modern retelling of the Ancient Greek tragedy Medea by Euripedes watching Maria Callas play Medea in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1969 film adaptation trying to figure out how she might connect to it through her own complicated feelings around motherhood thrown up by the trial That is where the power of Saint Omer lies. We watch and listen to Guslagie Malanga delivering an impeccably nuanced performance as the convicted Laurence Coly, and her defence barrister, played by Aurélia Petit. Cinematographer Claire Mathon, who shot Céline Sciamma’s Portrait Of A Lady On Fire holds the frame uncomfortably close as Caroline Shaw’s breathy ‘Courante’ plays on the soundtrack to evoke the claustrophobic atmosphere of the small courtroom These filmic dimensions are new to Diop’s cinema essentially framing the audience as Laurence’s jury Saint Omer tackles the unconscious biases surrounding cultural difference directly in a supposedly objective legal system Company number 01176085; Bauer Radio Limited Company number: 1394141; Registered office: Media House Peterborough PE2 6EA and H Bauer Publishing Company number: LP003328; Registered office: The Lantern H Bauer Publishing are authorised and regulated for credit broking by the FCA (Ref No: 845898)