Alice Diop receives the prestigious Jean Vigo 2022 Award for "Saint Omer", in the footsteps of her ancestor Ousmane Sembene (La Noire de..., 1966)

With “Saint Omer”, Alice Diop receives the prestigious Jean Vigo 2022 Award in the footsteps of her ancestor Ousmane Sembene for the film La Noire de..., in 1966

Alice Diop receives the 70th Jean Vigo Award. A French film prize, presented since 1951 (to filmmakers such as Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, or more recently, to filmmakers Axelle Ropert, Sophie Letourneur, etc.).

And I may add: in 1966, the award was presented to Alice Diop's illustrious Senegalese ancestor, Ousmane Sembene, for the pioneering film La Noire de..., also relating the tragic story of an African woman living in France, as the main protagonist.

The prestigious Jean-Vigo 2022 award was presented to Alice Diop on Wednesday, 19 October, at the Centre Pompidou for her first fiction feature, Saint Omer. The jury praised “her unique way of reflecting our era, with the unthinkable as a point of departure—connecting the intimate and the collective, society and history, the inexplicable and the political necessity to find meaning.”  This trial-film, which will be released in theaters on November 23, candidly traces the true story of Fabienne Kabou, an infanticidal mother who abandoned her 15-month-old daughter on a beach in Berck-sur-Mer in 2013. In the film, the young novelist Rama attends the trial of Laurence Coly and while listening to the testimonies, sees her certitudes upended.

The new award consolidates the already impressive and remarkable international journey of Saint Omer. Selected in the official competition at the Mostra de Venise 2022, where it won awards back-to-back, the Silver Lion and the Lion of the Future, the film will represent France for the 2023 Oscars, in the “best international film” category. Active for more than fifteen years in the documentary genre (les Sénégalaises et la Sénégauloise, la Mort de Danton (the Death of Danton), Vers la tendresse (Towards tenderness)—winner of the César for best short film in 2017…), Alice Diop attained international recognition for the first time with Nous (awarded in Berlin), a majestic odyssey from north to south of the Parisian peripheral suburbs along the [rapid-transit commuter train] RER B, in the footsteps of François Maspero.

by Beti Ellerson

Based on French-language text in the Liberation.