Alice Diop has just been selected to represent France at the Oscars, with the film Saint-Omer. His film, which will be released in cinemas on November 23, was highly noticed at the Venice Film Festival, as was his viral and resounding speech.
This Friday, September 23, filmmaker Alice Diop was chosen to represent France at the Oscars, with her first feature film Saint Omer.
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A fortnight ago, the screenwriter and director received two awards at the prestigious Venice Film Festival for this same film: the Silver Lion, Grand Jury Prize, and the Lion of the Future for Best First Film.
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On this occasion, the filmmaker gave a very strong speech, and much relayed on social networks. Highlighting the symbolism of receiving these awards from a jury chaired by actress Julianne Moore, and therefore “a story of transmission, story of sorority, a story of handover, in this film so feminine“, Alice Diop then summoned the words of an author who means a lot to her, Audre Lorde.
“It’s very strange because I no longer have the words… Whereas when I was filming Saint Omer, there is a book that was my bedside book, that I read every evening, which gave me strength. It’s a book by poet Audre Lorde, who goes by the name Sister Outsider. In Sister Outsider, she writes, speaking of black women: “Our silence won’t protect us“. I want to say this evening: “We won’t be silent anymore”
We spoke with the director on the eve of the announcement of the Oscars, on the occasion of the Congress of publishers of the FNCF. We wanted to come back with her to the echo that this speech had, and the importance of these two prizes for her as a filmmaker. Check out our video interview above, and the full interview below.
“It’s so exceptional, so unexpected. For me to have these prices, it was not even a possible projection. It’s even more amazing and even more moving. But beyond the prices, what I remember is the breathtaking and absolutely overwhelming welcome. The day of the screening in Venice was one of the strongest days of my life. The feedback from women in particular who told me their personal experience, the very direct echoes between their personal story and this story, how they had gone through it, how it allowed them to question themselves in relation to motherhood…
It really convinced me of what I’ve always believed in, which is how universal this story is. The central question of the film is really the relationship that everyone has with motherhood. Finally, that we are not confined to our negritude, but that we can also raise questions that speak to everyone, and that it be recognized, validated, observed. It’s something that makes me happy.”
“My whole life is political. What I stand for, what I am, what I work, what I do. Everything is political. So this sentence from Audre Lorde (“Our silence will not protect us”, Ed.) is just as important as the film and my presence, the body of a black woman on this stage, in front of this assembly. It’s just as political as anything that’s happened to me, anything that I’ve been doing for 20 years. In the euphoria and in the panic of getting back on stage and thinking about what I could say, this sentence from Audre Lorde came back to me“, develops Alice Diop at our microphone.
This sentence says a whole personal journey, an intimate journey, a life story, which sums up everything why I do it.
“[Sister Outsider] is a book that helped me a lot to understand the need for what I was creating in the cinema. This sentence says a whole personal journey, an intimate journey, a life story, which sums up everything why I do it. I think of all the other black women who are turning on the margins, and of whom I would like in a certain way that this award could illuminate where they are. (…) Now we are going to talk, now we are going to stage our stories. But if we are ready to stop being silent, are you ready to welcome? There is also all that in this statement.”
During this interview with Alice Diop, we also asked her about the question of the representation and renewal of stories, echoing remarks made by Rebecca Zlotowski during the Cannes Film Festival (“Put women and minorities in front of and behind the camera, it is also an economic emergency, because when the performances are not there, people disappear from the rooms”).
“Between Black Panter and Saint Omer, there is a worldshe tells us, about the question of representation. But actually, the question is: what are we offering people? How we try to best reflect the state of a society. I continue to go to the cinema and I make films for the theater, which are very demanding formally, from my location. That is to say that we cannot sum up the fact of being a black woman either, and that black people would naturally be attracted to a film like Saint Omer. I wish, but I speak from my place.
There is a need for narrative renewal, a need to revisit a collective history.
I quite agree with what Rebecca Zlotowski formulates. But I think the only answer is in faith, in inventing new forms, and indeed new stories. For me it’s almost a renewal, even as a filmmaker. Beyond the spectators, there are stories that I missed personally, even to grow my own cinema. It is certain that there are missing stories. It is certain that there are voices that we do not hear. There is a need for narrative renewal, a need to revisit a collective history, in a place that has been very little visited so far.”
Saint Omer will be released in cinemas on November 23. Until then, Alice Diop will travel to festivals with the film, notably at the Festival 2 Cinéma de Valenciennes, which begins today.
selected in several festivals
Valenciennes 2022: Alice Diop, Laure Calamy and Benoît Poelvoorde in competition… All about the Festival 2 Cinéma selection
Saint Omer will also be in competition at the Bordeaux Festival, the FIFIB, in October.
Saint Omer is inspired by a true story. The film follows Rama, a young novelist, who attends the trial of Laurence Coly at the Assize Court of Saint-Omer. The latter is accused of having killed her fifteen-month-old daughter by abandoning her at the rising tide on a beach in northern France. But during the trial, the word of the accused, listening to the testimonies make Rama’s certainties waver and question our judgement.