A French film award given since 1951 (to filmmakers such as Alain Resnais, Jean-Luc Godard, Maurice Pialat, or more recently, to filmmakers Axelle Ropert, Sophie Letourneur, etc.), the prestigious Jean-Vigo 2022 prize was awarded on Wednesday at Center Pompidou to Alice Diop, for her first fiction feature film, Saint-Omer. The jury hailed “his singular way of thinking about our time from the unthinkable, by linking the intimate and the collective, society and history, the inexplicable and the political need to find meaning”. VShe film-trial, which will be released in theaters on November 23, freely 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, Rama , a young novelist, attends the trial of Laurence Coly and sees her certainties turned upside down by listening to the testimonies.
This new award consolidates the already noticed and remarkable career of Saint-Omer internationally. Selected in official competition at the Venice Film Festival 2022, where it won the silver lion and the lion of the future in quick succession, the film will represent France in the race for the 2023 Oscars, in the “best international film” category. Active for more than fifteen years in the documentary genre (the Senegalese and the Senegalese, Danton’s Death, Towards tendernesswinner of the César for best short film in 2017…), Alice Diop achieved international recognition for the first time with We (awarded in Berlin), majestic crossing of the Parisian suburbs from north to south along the RER B, in the footsteps of François Maspero.
The Jean-Vigo 2022 prize for short films was also awarded to Virgil Vernier (Mercuriales, Sophia Antipolis…) pour children’s hymns, a look back at the Aulnay-sous-Bois riots in 2005 from television archives. At 79, actor, screenwriter and filmmaker Jacques Nolot (author notably of the hinterland, the two-headed cat), a regular collaborator of André Téchiné, received the Vigo d’honneur. The Jean-Vigo awards distinguish “the independence of spirit, the quality and the originality of the filmmakers”.