the way that I built the movies that I'm thinking about the Misencene, it was a lot of

intuition.

Hello. Hello and welcome back to the director's cut, brought to by the Directors Guild of America.

In today's episode, a young writer has her preconceived notion shaken by a tragic court case and director Alice Diop's drama from France, St. Omer.

Based on true events, the film tells the story of Rama, a successful author living in Paris,

who travels to the northern town of St. Omer to attend the trial of a young Senegalese woman

accused of murdering her baby daughter.

Rama's plan to write a book about the case unravels when she is forced to reckon with memories of her own immigrant mother, as well as her impending motherhood.

St. Omer, Diop's narrative featured debut, took home the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and

the Lion of the Future and Best Debut

Film Award at the Venice International Film Festival.

Her direction of the film earned her a DGA Award nomination for outstanding directorial

achievement in first-time feature film.

Following the Global Cinema series screening of the film at the DGA Theater in New York,

D.Opp speaks with director D. Reese about filming St. Omer with the assistance of translator

Catherine Valene. Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.

This film was such a pleasure to watch and to rewatch.

And so I hope that you all feel as deeply connected as I do to this material

and to these characters that Alice so artfully crafted.

And I'll just jump right in.

Like one of the things I have to say is I think that what's remarkable about what you've done

is in every frame there's this existential exhaustion amongst our three characters and even watching the end again there's a sense of longing there's this deflection that each character almost every scene there's always the sense of longing and def. And so I think that's one of the things that's really done very beautifully.

...