The film "Saint-Omer", twice awarded at the beginning of September at the Venice Film Festival, by director Alice Diop has been chosen to represent France at the 2023 Oscars, the National Cinema Center (CNC) announced on Friday.

Inspired by a true story of a trial for infanticide, “Saint-Omer” seeks to explore the “universal question” of the “relationship to motherhood”, affirmed the director during the Mostra.

"A Powerful Movie"

His film tells the story of Laurence Coly, played by Guslagie Malanda, a Senegalese immigrant accused of having killed her 15-month-old baby by abandoning her on a northern beach at rising tide.

The film, centered on the trial, is directly inspired by a news item from 2013 and the trial that followed.

This is the first fiction of the 43-year-old director, until then specializing in documentaries, including the remarkable "We" (2021), which took the viewer to meet a territory - that crossed by the RER B -- and its inhabitants.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the prize for the first film in Venice, "Saint-Omer" is "a powerful film, emblematic of the revival of French cinema that we are proud to have supported in particular by the advance on receipts", s is congratulated the boss of the CNC, Dominique Boutonnat, quoted in the press release.

It will be released in theaters on November 23.

“Indochine”, the last award-winning French film

The 95th Academy Awards will take place on March 12, 2023 in Los Angeles.

Previously, a pre-selection of 15 films will be unveiled on December 21, 2022, before the five finalist films on January 24, 2023.

At the end of July, the CNC reviewed the organization of its commission responsible for selecting the French film for the Oscars.

From now on, the commission is made up of seven professionals appointed each year by the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, on the proposal of the president of the CNC.

The last French film to win the Oscar for best international film was "Indochine" by Régis Wargnier, in 1993. "Titanium" by Julia Ducournau, tricolor representative in 2022, had not been shortlisted by the Academy of Oscars.

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