“Saint Omer” has landed U.S. distribution on the heels of its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival. Deadline reports that Super, Neon’s boutique label, scored rights to the narrative debut of documentarian Alice Diop. The drama premiered at Venice earlier this month and took home the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize and the Luigi De Laurentiis Lion of the Future Award for Best Debut Feature.

An exploration of motherhood, “Saint Omer” is inspired by a true story and “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,” the source hints.

Diop penned the script with Amrita David and Marie NDiaye.

“Saint Omer” has been shortlisted by the French Academy Awards commission for the 2023 Best International Feature race. It will make its U.S. premiere at NYFF October 3.

Diop’s “We” (“Nous”) won the Berlin Film Festival’s Encounters Award in 2021. The documentary is a portrait of people and communities connected by the RER B commuter train in Paris.