Saint Omer is a 2022 French legal drama film written and directed by Alice Diop, and starring Kayije Kagame and Guslagie Malanda.

The film is based on the French court case of Fabienne Kabou, who was convicted in 2016 of murdering her infant by drowning.

Rama (Kagame) is a pregnant young novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Malanda), a Senegalese woman accused of murdering her 15-month-old child by leaving her on a beach to be swept away.

Rama, a literature professor and novelist, travels from Paris to Saint-Omer to observe the trial of Laurence Coly and write about the case.

Coly is a graduate student and Senegalese immigrant who is charged in the murder of her 15-month-old daughter, having left her on a beach to be drowned by the tide in Berck.

[12][13] Guslagie Malanda, who played the role based on Kabou, found being in character so taxing that she had nightmares for a year.

[16] It premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on 7 September 2022,[2] where it won the Grand Jury Prize along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award.

The website's consensus reads, "A gut-punching contemplation of a woman's immigrant experience, Saint Omer puts a mother on the stand and the audience in the jury box to find humanity in the inhumane.

[18] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it "Intellectually galvanizing and emotionally harrowing, the story explores motherhood, race and postcolonial France with control, lucidity and compassion.