In 2016, Alice Diop set out to the northern French town of Saint Omer to attend the trial of Fabienne Kabou, a Senegalese woman accused of killing her baby girl. The French media was enraptured by the crime; the details made for a textbook fait divers, a sensational news item spun by journalists desperate to satiate their scandal-starved readers. Yet, as the trial unfolded, Kabou and her actions remained distant and impenetrable; her case became a kind of mockery of our legal systems, reliant as they are on classification and concrete truths to administer justice. At every turn, Kabou defied expectations: she was an educated woman, beautifully articulate and poised even as she repeatedly tweaked her story depending, it seemed, on her mood. Baffled by her own decision to abandon…
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Cinema Scope (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 93 - Winter 2023