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Even in supposedly enlightened societies it is practically an article of faith that a woman’s identity as a mother must supercede all her other identities. Not only that: any woman not willing to sacrifice all the other love in her life for the love of her child is unnatural, an aberration and the ultimate taboo: a bad mother. Anna Cazenave Cambet’s sweeping, moving “Love Me Tender,” based on the semi-autobiographical novel by Constance Debré, aims at the heart of this pervasive ideology of hypocrisy and unreachably high expectations, and largely thanks to a rivetingly radiant Vicky Krieps, hits its mark with painful accuracy. The paths to what is socially deemed success as a mother are few and narrow and heavily policed, but there are a million ways to fail.

Krieps, lean and rangy in T-shirts and denim, plays Clémence, a divorced writer who used to be a lawyer,...

If there are two things you can say about art house ingenue Vicky Krieps, it’s that she’s the most internationally famous actor to ever emerge from the tiny European nation of Luxembourg, and that she rarely takes on roles that could be considered easy or light.

After breaking out in Phantom Thread, starring as a model who turns the tables on her abusive boss/boyfriend, she’s been drawn towards characters who are either living on the edge or going through hell. In the past three years alone, she’s played a woman stricken with a rare debilitating illness (More Than Ever); a renown Austrian poet whose life was tragically cut short (Ingeborg Bachmann — Journey into the Desert); a tight-lipped U.S. border cop who kills a migrant and tries to get away with it (The Wall); and a frontier wife who’s brutally raped, then winds up...

Brussels-based sales agent Be For Films has secured international sales rights to “Love Me Tender,” Anna Cazenave Cambet’s sophomore feature starring Vicky Krieps, which has landed a slot in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival.

Based on Constance Debré’s novel, the film follows Clémence (Krieps), whose life is dramatically upended when her ex-husband files to strip her of custody of their son after she reveals she’s had relationships with women. The narrative chronicles her years-long battle to defend her right to be both a mother and a woman free to make her own choices.

The cast includes Antoine Reinartz, Monia Chokri, Vigo Ferrera-Redier, Aurélia Petit, Ji-min Park, and Salif Cissé alongside Krieps. The film’s crew includes cinematographer Kristy Baboul, composer Maxence Dussere, editor Joris Laquittant, sound designer Marlette Mathieu-Goudier, casting director Youna de Peretti, and costume designer Vanessa Deutsch.

“Love Me Tender” is produced by Novoprod Cinéma,...

Filming has begun on Anthony Dechaux’s thriller The Price To Pay (La Guerre Des Prix) for France tv Distribution which has snapped up international rights and will launch sales at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

Ana Girardot and Olivier Gourmet star in the film about a woman who works for a large retail chain whose brother runs the local family farm in Normandy. An advocate for organic, local farming practices, she heads to Paris to attempt to drive change from within the large corporation and defend local producers’ interests but gets embroiled in a system that challenges her values.

Filming has begun on Anthony Dechaux’s thriller The Price To Pay (La Guerre Des Prix) for France tv Distribution which has snapped up international rights and will launch sales at Unifrance’s Rendez-Vous in Paris this week.

Ana Girardot and Olivier Gourmet star in the film about a woman who works for a large retail chain whose brother runs the local family farm in Normandy. An advocate for organic, local farming practices, she heads to Paris to attempt to drive change from within the large corporation and defend local producers’ interests but gets embroiled in a system that challenges her values.

Under Paris 2 has seemingly been confirmed. Under Paris is a French-language Netflix film that was released earlier this year. It tells the fictional story of what happens when an oversized mako shark makes its way into the freshwater Seine river in Paris, France, right before a major swimming race. Under Paris features a leading cast including Brnice Bejo, Nassim Lyes, Lea Leviant, Sandra Parfait, Aksel Ustun, Marvin Dubart, and Aurelia Petit. It was an incredible global success upon its release on Netflix this year.

In an interview with the LA Tribune, actor Bejo reveals plans for Under Paris 2. According to the actor, the Under Paris sequel, to which she refers as Under the Seine 2, will begin filming in fall of next year. Specifically, she specified the filming start date as September 2025. Bejo did not reveal any plot details as to Under Paris 2 but mentioned "It is another film, very different.

Under Paris ranks second on Netflix's all-time viewership list for non-English movies with 99.9 million views. The film needs 3.1 million views to overtake Troll as the most-watched non-English movie. Mixed reviews could affected Under Paris, but its environmental themes and excitement could propel it to the top spot.

Under Paris climbs Netflix's all-time viewership chart in an updated top two ranking. Co-written and directed by Xavier Gens, the French-language survival thriller follows a mourning marine biologist who must confront her tragic past in order to prevent a massacre in Paris after a giant shark emerges from the Seine. Brnice Bejo leads the Under Paris cast alongside La Lviant, Nassim Lyes, Anas Parello, Anne Marivin, Nagisa Morimoto, Aurelia Petit, and many more in supporting roles. When the movie premiered on Netflix, it was the most-watched movie across the platform globally, in any language, for two straight weeks.

Now, almost three months...

Under Paris is an unconventional killer shark movie featuring a strong cast that helps sell its implausible premise. Largely implausible but entertaining, the movie requires viewers to suspend disbelief for a gripping experience. The personal vendetta and desperate scientists in the plot contribute to the generally good reviews received by Under Paris.

Warning: Contains Spoilers for Under Paris

Under Paris is an unconventional riff on the killer shark movie subgenre, that succeeds in spite of its unusual premise thanks to the strong performances of its cast. Like many movies that feature real creatures run amok, Under Paris requires viewers to suspend their disbelief for almost all of its runtime. While this makes the movie largely implausible, it doesn't detract from the entertainment a balancing act only made possible because of the actors involved.

As its title alludes, Under Paris follows a lethal giant fish patrolling the waters of the Seine.

So, thanks to Netflix, we have a juicy shark horror to watch for the first time in ages. Xavier Gens’ Under Paris is a breath of fresh air in the genre, which has been contaminated by poor campy movies in recent years. You don’t necessarily have to be a fan of shark movies to enjoy this one, as it’s so much more than that and offers something for every kind of audience. Set in the Seine in Paris, the cast of Under Paris deserves a huge round of applause. Here’s the leading cast that appears in this new Netflix movie.

Spoilers Ahead

Bérénice Bejo as Sophia

Widely known for her role as Christiana in the Heath Ledger starrer A Knight’s Tale, Bejo plays the protagonist Sophia in Under Paris. Sophia is a marine biologist and has led a team dedicated to saving whales and other sea life...

Chicago – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio film review for “Saint Omer,” the French film narrative debut of documentary maker Alice Diop, based on a real trial that she had observed. Currently in select theaters, see local listings.

Rating: 4.0/5.0

Centered on a murder trial that focuses on Rama (Kayiije Kagame), a literature professor who wants to write about Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanda), who is about to be judged in court for drowning her toddler daughter in the ocean. As the trial proceeds, Rama increases her own anxiety about being newly pregnant and the relationship with her mother … Laurence and Rama are both in France through roots in African Senegal, and that circumstance unite the two characters together.

”Saint Omer” is currently in select theaters. See local listings. Featuring Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit and Xavier Maly. Screenplay by Alice Diop, Amrita David and Marie N’Diaye. Directed by Alice Diop.

The central aspect of French filmmaker Alice Diop's fiction-feature debut, Saint Omer, is an unfathomable crime: A mother left her 15-month-old daughter on a beach to be swept out to sea, resulting in her death. It is inspired by a real case that made headlines in France and abroad, the trial for which the director actually attended. While the film is interested in the woman who committed the act, it primarily follows a character in Diop's observer position, and its driving question is not, as it might've been in other projects, "How does one make any sense of senseless tragedy?" Instead, Saint Omer asks, "What if an unfathomable crime isn't so unfathomable after all?" It is a heavy line of thinking that leads to no easy answers, but which Diop follows anyway, with enveloping, patient intent. Viewers willing to give it the same, almost spellbound focus the protagonist gives...

Saint Omer Review — Saint Omer (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Alice Diop, written by Amrita David and Alice Diop and starring Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Xavier Maly, Thomas de Pourquery, Salimata Kamate, Robert Cantarella, Aurelia Petit and Louise Lemoine Torres. Alice Diop’s heavy but absorbing dramatic French film, Saint Omer, is certainly [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Saint Omer (2022): Filmmaker Alice Diop’s Courtroom Drama is Captivating and Marvelously Acted...

Shudder and IFC Midnight are launching microbudget Skinamarink on a not-so-micro 629 screens, giving the viral horror pic a major push after a well-received premiere back at Fantasia-fest that just kept snowballing with strong reviews and social media love.

“I was over the moon. For a horror filmmaker in Canada, [Fantasia] is like getting a Cannes screening,” says first-time filmmaker Kyle Edward Ball about the leadup to this weekend’s buzzy specialty opening. He shot the 15k feature at his parents’ home in Edmonton, Canada.

In it, two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished. “I’d had a nightmare when I was little. I was in my parents’ house, my parents were missing, and there was a monster. And lots of people have shared this exact same dream,” Ball tells Deadline.

This review originally ran September 7, 2022, in conjunction with the film’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival.

“A woman who has killed her baby can’t really expect any sympathy,” says Laurence Coly, who is accused of that very crime, in celebrated documentarian Alice Diop’s narrative debut “Saint Omer,” making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival. So, the logical question is: Why would anyone watch such a film? Fortunately, Diop gives us many reasons.

Diop — whose 2021 documentary “We” (“Nous”), revolving around Black immigrant communities in the Paris suburbs, won top honors at the Berlin International Film Festival — doesn’t abandon her nonfiction roots. Truth also fuels her feature film. In it, well-spoken, educated Senegalese immigrant Laurence Coly, like the real Fabienne Kabou only a few years back, stands trial in quaint Saint-Omer in northeastern France for killing her 15-month-old daughter.

There to capture it all is pregnant...

Saint Omer Trailer — Alice Diop‘s Saint Omer (2022) movie trailer has been released by Super Ltd. The Saint Omer trailer stars Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit, and Xavier Maly. Crew Amrita David, Alice Diop, and Marie Ndiaye wrote the screenplay for Saint Omer. Plot Synopsis Saint Omer‘s plot synopsis: “Saint Omer court of law. [...]

Continue reading: Saint Omer (2022) Movie Trailer: A Murder Case Shakes a Young Novelist’s Convictions in Alice Diop’s Film...

"Sorcery was the only logical conclusion." Super Ltd has revealed the official US trailer for the acclaimed French drama Saint Omer, which first premiered at the 2022 Venice Film Festival this fall a few months ago. It won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at that fest, before going on to screen at the Toronto, New York, London, Busan, Hamptons, Ghent, and Chicago Film Festivals. The fictional film follows Rama, a novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly at the Saint-Omer Criminal Court to use her story to write a modern-day adaptation of the ancient myth of "Medea", but things don't go as expected. As the trial continues, the words of the accused and witness testimonies will shake Rama's convictions. Starring Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit, and Xavier Maly. While many critics are fans of this film, I did not like it much at all. It's excruciatingly dry and dull,...

Protest

Oscar and Venice-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras and fellow filmmakers Georgia Oakley (“Blue Jean”), Roberto Minervini (“What You Gonna Do When the World’s on Fire?”) and Ondi Timoner (“Last Flight Home”) were among those who protested against the imprisonment of Iranian filmmakers and other incarcerated artists around the world, and to demonstrate support for the tenacious women of Iran who are challenging for their freedom at the BFI London Film Festival on Monday.

They joined festival director Tricia Tuttle, producer Madeleine Molyneaux (“Gospel Hill”); actors Aurélia Petit (“Saint Omer”) and Taki Mumladze (“A Room of My Own”); actor and writer Mariam Khundadze (“To Batumi and every single memory”); writer Morgan M. Page (“Framing Agnes”); industry leaders Tabitha Jackson, Clare Binns and Jason Wood; and other festival delegates in a moment of solidarity and reflection.

They stood together holding the names of imprisoned Iranian filmmakers Mohammad Rasoulof, Mostafa Al-Ahmad and Jafar Panahi,...

Members of the UK film community came together at the BFI Southbank.

Around 40 members of the UK filmmaking community came together at the BFI Southbank yesterday (October 10) to stand in solidarity with jailed Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, the women leading the protest movement in Iran and all those demonstrating for freedom in the country.

BFI London Film Festival director Tricia Tuttle led the event, which was attended by filmmakers and executives including: Picturehouse’s managing director Clare Binns; former Sundance director Tabitha Jackson; All The Beauty And The Bloodshed filmmaker Laura Poitras; Blue Jean director Georgia Oakley; No Kings director...

Country’s selectors hoping to end 30-year barren streak since last Oscar win.

France is hoping to break a 30-year barren streak and has selected Alice Diop’s Saint Omer to represent the country in the best international feature film category for the 95th Academy Awards.

‘Saint Omer’: Venice Review

The film was announced by the Cnc on Friday evening (September 23) after a day of deliberations by a recently revamped selection committee who chose it from a shortlist of titles that also included Mia Hansen-Løve’s One Fine Morning, Alice Winocour’s Paris Memories, Eric Gravel’s Full Time,...

Click here to read the full article.

Neon’s boutique label Super has acquired the U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s Saint Omer after a bow at Venice.

The film picked up the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, played in Toronto and is headed to a U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival. Super plans to release the film theatrically.

Diop co-wrote her debut fiction feature alongside Amrita David and Marie Ndiaye. Saint Omer stars Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville and Aurélia Petit.

The courtroom drama allowed Diop to make her first narrative feature with Saint Omer. The film follows Rama (Kagame), a pregnant young novelist who attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Malanda), a Senegalese woman accused of murdering her 15-month-old baby by leaving her on a beach to be swept away by the tide.

Rama arrives in the northern French town of Saint Omer,...

Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” has scored U.S. distribution with Neon’s boutique label Super after making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won two major competition awards.

Super will release the film in theaters, following its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival and screening at the BFI London Film Festival, both in October. “Saint Omer” won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Feature at Venice; it also played at TIFF earlier this month, making it one of only four films to compete at NYFF, TIFF and Venice.

“Saint Omer” is the first narrative feature from Diop, the documentary filmmaker of “We,” “La Permanence” and “La Mort de Danton.” Inspired by a true story, the film revolves around the trial of Laurence Coly, a Senagalese woman accused of killing...

Neon’s boutique label Super has secured U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s acclaimed drama Saint Omer, following its world premiere earlier this month at the Venice Film Festival, where the film won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize, as well as the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Feature.

Inspired by a true story, Saint Omer is billed as a contemporary version of the Medea myth. The film follows the novelist Rama (Kayije Kagame) as she attends the trial of Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga), a young woman accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her to the rising tide on a beach in northern France. As the trial continues, the words of the accused and witness testimonies will shake Rama’s convictions and call into question our own judgment.

One of just four films selected to competition this year at the Venice,...

US premiere set for New York Film Festival.

Neon’s boutique label Super has acquired US rights to Alice Diop’s Venice Silver Lion winner and Toronto selection Saint Omer, one of five films shortlisted for France’s international feature film Oscar submission.

‘Saint Omer’: Venice Review

Diop’s fiction feature debut is inspired by a true story and plays on the Medea mythology about the mother who kills her child. It follows Rama, a young novellist researching her next book, who reflects on her relationship with her mother as she attends the trial of a woman accused of infanticide.

Super, the boutique distribution label from Neon, has acquired U.S. rights to Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer” after it won the Silver Lion Grand Jury prize in Venice along with the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future award.

“Saint Omer” was recently shortlisted for France’s submission to the Academy Awards and will premiere at the New York Film Festival and play the BFI London Festival. Neon plans a theatrical release.

“Saint Omer” is Diop’s debut fiction feature, which she co-wrote with Amrita David and Marie NDiaye, and it stars Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville and Aurélia Petit. Toufik Ayadi and Christophe Barral of Srab Films produced alongside Arte France Cinéma and Pictanovo Hauts-de-France.

Inspired by a true story, “Saint Omer” revolves around Rama, a young novelist who attends the trial of a women who is accused of killing her 15-month-old daughter by abandoning her on a beach.

The Film Circuit begins with Telluride, a small but perfect film festival in the mountains of Colorado as simultaneously Venice unfurls the films that will soon be released in the wonderful arthouse cinemas of Europe, followed closely by Toronto whose films foretell the coming year’s Oscars nominees. It is a very exciting time to be on the festival circuit.

And simultaneously with these great screenings are sidebars, panel discussions, workshops, master classes and all around great networking for filmmakers around the world.

Venezia 79 Competition

Il Signore Delle Formiche

Director Gianni Amelio

Main Cast Luigi Lo Cascio, Elio Germano, Leonardo Maltese, Sara Serraiocco / Italy / 134’

The Whale

Director Darren Aronofsky

Main Cast Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Hong Chau, Samantha Morton, Ty Simpkins / USA / 117’

White Noise

Director Noah Baumbach

Main Cast Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, May Nivola, Jodie Turner-Smith, André L. Benjamin and Lars Eidinger / USA / 136’

L’IMMENSITÀ

Director Emanuele Crialese

Main Cast Penélope Cruz, Luana Giuliani, Vincenzo Amato, Patrizio Francioni / Italy, France / 97’

Saint Omer

Director Alice Diop

Main Cast Kayije Kagame, Guslagie Malanda, Valérie Dréville, Aurélia Petit / France / 123’

Blonde

Director Andrew Dominik

Main Cast Ana de Armas, Adrien Brody, Bobby Cannavale, Xavier Samuel, Julianne Nicholson, Lily Fisher / USA / 166’

TÁR

Director Todd Field

Main Cast Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, Mark Strong / USA / 158’

Love Life

Director Kôji Fukada

Main Cast Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada / Japan, France / 123’

Bardo, Falsa CRÓNICA De Unas Cuantas Verdades

Director Alejandro G. Iñárritu

Main Cast Daniel Giménez Cacho, Griselda Siciliani, Ximena Lamadrid, Iker Sanchez Solano, Andrés Almeida, Francisco Rubio / Mexico / 174’

Athena

Director Romain Gavras

Main Cast Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon, Ouassini Embarek, Alexis Manenti / France / 97’

Bones And All

Director Luca Guadagnino

Main Cast Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance, André Holland, Chloë Sevigny, Jessica Harper, David Gordon Green, Michael Stuhlbarg, Jake Horowitz / USA / 130’

The Eternal Daughter

Director Joanna Hogg

Main Cast Tilda Swinton, Joseph Mydell, Carly-Sophia Davies / UK, USA / 96’

Shab, Dakheli, Divar (Beyond The Wall)

Director Vahid Jalilvand

Main Cast Navid Mohammadzadeh, Diana Habibi, Amir Aghaee / Iran / 126’

The Banshees Of Inisherin

Director Martin McDonagh

Main Cast Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Barry Keoghan / Ireland, UK, USA / 109’

Argentina, 1985

Director Santiago Mitre

Main Cast Ricardo Darín, Peter Lanzani, Alejandra Flechner, Norman Briski / Argentina, USA / 140’

Chiara

Director Susanna Nicchiarelli

Main Cast Margherita Mazzucco, Andrea Carpenzano, Carlotta Natoli, Paola Tiziana Cruciani, Luigi Lo Cascio / Italy, Belgium / 106’

Monica

Director Andrea Pallaoro

Main Cast Trace Lysette, Patricia Clarkson, Adriana Barraza, Emily Browning, Joshua Close / USA, Italy / 113’

Khers Nist (No Bears)

Director Jafar Panahi

Main Cast Jafar Panahi, Naser Hashemi, Vahid Mobaseri, Bakhtiar Panjeei, Mina Kavani, Reza Heydari / Iran / 107’

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

Director Laura Poitras

USA / 117’

Un Couple

Director Frederick Wiseman

Main Cast Nathalie Boutefeu / France, USA / 64’

The Son

Director Florian Zeller

Main Cast Hugh Jackman, Laura Dern, Vanessa Kirby, Zen McGrath, Anthony Hopkins, Hugh Quarshie / UK / 124’

Les Miens

Director Roschdy Zem

Main Cast Sami Bouajila, Roschdy Zem, Meriem Serbah, Maïwenn, Rachid Bouchareb, Abel Jafrei, Nina Zem / France / 85’

Les Enfants Des Autres

Director Rebecca Zlotowski

Main Cast Virginie Efira, Roschdy Zem, Chiara Mastroianni, Callie Ferreira / France / 104’

Toronto is in spite of itself in a civilized sort of way in competition for the premieres with Venice, though the sequential festivals are serving different constituencies. Still, The Whale, for example is premiering in Venice and then traveling to TIFF.

TIFF Gala Presentations:

The Whale directed by Darren Aronofsky, produced and to be distributed in U.S. and actng as international sales agent A24.

TIFF says: “Brendan Fraser gives a career-defining performance in Darren Aronofsky’s arrestingly intimate drama about a reclusive English professor struggling with personal relationships and self-acceptance, adapted from the stage play by Samuel D. Hunter.”

Alice, Darling by Mary Nighy

Also playing are Alice, Darling (Mary Nighy) in which Anna Kendrick captures the anxious psychology of a woman in an abusive relationship as her friends try to reconnect with her while on a cottage getaway.

Black Ice(Hubert Davis) about Black hockey players facing systemic racism in the sport.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever (Peter Farrelly) about man’s story of leaving New York in 1967 to bring beer to his childhood buddies in the Army while they are fighting in Vietnam. An Apple TV+ production.

Butcher’s Crossing (Gabe Polsky) is a frontier epic about an Ivy League drop-out as he travels to the Colorado wilderness, where he joins a team of buffalo hunters on a journey that puts his life and sanity at risk. Based on the highly acclaimed novel by John Williams. Isa Altitude

The Hummingbird (Francesca Archibugi)Hunt (Jung-jae Lee)A Jazzman’s Blues (Tyler Perry)Kacchey Limbu (Shubham Yogi)Moving On (Paul Weitz)Paris Memories (Alice Winocour)Prisoner’s Daughter (Catherine Hardwicke)Raymond & Ray (Rodrigo García)Roost (Amy Redford)Sidney (Reginald Hudlin)The Son (Florian Zeller)The Swimmers (Sally El Hosaini)What’s Love Got to Do With It? (Shekhar Kapur)The Woman King(Gina Prince-Bythewood)

Special PRESENTATIONSAllelujah (Sir Richard Eyre)All Quiet on the Western Front (Edward Berger)The Banshees Of Inisherin (Martin McDonagh)Blueback (Robert Connolly)The Blue Caftan (Maryam Touzani)Broker (Hirokazu Kore-eda)Brother (Clement Virgo)Bros (Nicholas Stoller)Catherine Called Birdy (Lena Dunham)Causeway (Lila Neugebauer)Chevalier (Stephen Williams)Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)Decision to Leave (Park Chan-wook)Devotion (Jd Dillard)Driving (Madeleine Christian Carion)El Suplente (Diego Lerman)Empire of Light...

In 2016, in the courtroom of Saint-Omer, a small, untouristed town off a D-road between Calais and Lille, the trial took place of a young Senegalese Frenchwoman accused of murdering her baby: an act so utterly antithetical to accepted ideas of motherhood and womanhood that it is inescapably considered the “worst of all possible crimes.” The woman, a PhD student with a reported genius Iq and a flair for flamboyantly intellectual French, confessed but claimed sorcery as the real culprit. It’s the kind of true story that presents an obvious opportunity for a sensitive social drama given to sober, sorrowfully objective observations about the perilous, tumbling vortex of class, gender, ethnic and cultural issues in which it plays out. “Saint Omer,” the deceptively austere, extraordinarily multifaceted fiction debut from documentarian Alice Diop, is not that film.

Instead, positioned on a mesmerizingly steady axis stretching, as though along a fascinated gaze,...

The first experience of lust often forms the basis of a coming-of-age story. Given that it’s a subgenre that is hardly underpopulated, in any given year, we tend to see quite a few of those awkward first fumblings, those early embarrassments, those clumsy hormonal attempts at seduction. But rarely are they outlined with the same sincerity and sweetness as in as the cooling influence of his reserve and cultural values meets the incoming weather front of a hot new passion.

The first thunderclap happens the moment Ahmed (“Sex Education’s” Sami Outalbali in a beautifully soulful performance) lays eyes on Farah (Zbeida Belhajamor) in the halls of the Sorbonne, where both are taking a course in comparative literature. It doesn’t help that the reading for the class, taught by Professor Morel (Aurélia Petit), is almost exclusively early Arabic erotic poetry, in which Ahmed, the French-born son of Algerian immigrants,...

François Ozon on By The Grace Of God (Grâce À Dieu): “It was important to show the complexity of all these characters.” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

François Ozon’s timely and relevant By The Grace Of God (Grâce À Dieu), shot by Manuel Dacosse (Jean-François Richet’s The Emperor Of Paris) edited by Laure Gardette, and costumes by Pascaline Chavanne, stars Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet and Swann Arlaud with Aurélia Petit, Josiane Balasko, Éric Caravaca, Martine Erhel, François Marthouret, Bernard Verley, Amélie Daure, Hélène Vincent, Max Libert, Nicolas Bauwens, Zuri François, Timi-Joy Marbot, and Zéli Marbot.

Alexandre Guérin (Melvil Poupaud) and François Debord (Denis Ménochet) with Gilles Perret (Éric Caravaca)

In the second half of my in-depth conversation with the director/screenwriter we discuss the complexity of the characters who are struggling to come to grips with memories from the past and the importance of the flashbacks in telling the story.

François Ozon on the roles for Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet and Swann Arlaud in By The Grace Of God (Grâce À Dieu): "I decided to make this kind of relay race between these three characters." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

By The Grace Of God (Grâce À Dieu), starring Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet and Swann Arlaud with an impressive supporting cast including Aurélia Petit, Josiane Balasko, Éric Caravaca, Martine Erhel, François Marthouret, Bernard Verley, Amélie Daure, Hélène Vincent, Max Libert, Nicolas Bauwens, Zuri François, Timi-Joy Marbot, and Zéli Marbot, had its world première at the Berlin Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear Grand Jury prize.

François Debord (Denis Ménochet), Gilles Perret (Éric Caravaca), Emmanuel Thomassin (Swann Arlaud), and Alexandre Guérin (Melvil Poupaud)

Whereas Tom McCarthy's Oscar-winning Spotlight focused on the journalistic tenaciousness of the reporters of the Boston Globe and its editor Marty Baron to expose the cover...

French director François Ozon has delivered one of the best films of his eclectic career with By the Grace of God, a drama whose seriousness and sincerity marks a tonal shift for a filmmaker typically famous for sexual and sensual provocation. Instead, this chronicle of a real-life grassroots campaign to out Catholic priests who committed and covered up of historic sexual abuse is unsensational and methodical, immaculately written through a script that radically tells three different stories that slide seamlessly together.

The first character we meet is a well-to-do banker Alexandre (Melvil Poupaud), a seemingly upstanding member of his Catholic community who brings his five kids up in the Church. But an encounter with an old scouting buddy brings a part of his past back: he’s asked, “Did Father Preynat fondle you too?” To Alexandre’s astonishment, he learns that Bernard Preynat is still a priest and working with children,...

Valérie Donzelli, the actress-turned director who we most recently caught as a supporting player in the garishly dressed Saint Laurent, Bertrand Bonello’s stylized biopic might have found a taste for risky content as cameras are set to lense next week on her fourth feature film. The Cineuropa folks report that Donzelli has completed the casting on Marguerite et Julien, a project that François Truffaut flirted with but ultimately passed on. Completing the cast we find Aurélia Petit (The Science of Sleep), vet thesps Sami Frey and Geraldine Chaplin, reuniting with her fellow Declaration of War‘s Frédéric Pierrot and Bastien Bouillon who join the previously announced duo of Anaïs Demoustier (you can find her in Ozon’s latest, the recently acquired Cohen Media’s The New Girlfriend) and Jérémie Elkaïm (full-time collaborator with Donzelli who we also discovered in Declaration of War). Rectangle Productions’ Edouard Weil (Benoît Jacquot’s...

Is There More to this Coming-of-Age Parable Than Meets the Eye?

One of the key specificities about the production of Julie Lopes Curval’s latest exploration of female social development, High Society, is the fact that she utilized a team comprised almost entirely of women to influence the creative and technical contingents. It’s a decision that has pointed intentions in itself, suggesting a conscious decision to evade male influence and authority within the context of a story that’s ostensibly and subtle female coming-of-age parable. It also clarifies any ambiguity surrounding interpretation of a text that, while effective, doesn’t quite spell out its position on gender relations.

The plot, in itself, isn’t particularly revolutionary or original in any way. It’s like a humbler, less literal, version of Stephen Gaghan’s forgettable thriller, Abandon, in its positioning of a young, determined female protagonist—Alice (Ana Girardot)—in...

An unusual, semi-autobiographical film by English director Andrew Kotting. By Peter Bradshaw

Here is a strange film whose strangeness is disguised – though only at first, and not for long – by the mannerisms of documentary realism. It is avowedly based on director Andrew Kotting's own childhood, and as with all autobiographical works, some of the incidental interest lies in wondering which parts come directly from real life, and which are wish-fulfilment inventions, intended to correct the past and alleviate its pain. Jean-Luc Bideau plays Ivul, an elderly, and somewhat cantankerous Franco-Russian patriarch who owns a handsome manor house in France with extensive woodland – but who was evidently even richer back in his native Russia. His younger wife Marie (Aurélia Petit) has provided him with four children: Alex (Jacob Auzanneau) and Freya (Adélaïde Leroux) are in their late teens, Capucine (Capucine Aubriot) and Manon (Manon Aubriot) are hardly more than toddlers.