Among this year’s Film Independent Spirt Award nominations for Best Feature were “Bones and All,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” “TÁR,” “Women Talking,” and an under-the-radar, France-set thriller about an African refugee facing her past.
The film didn’t win given the stiff competition, but it was a worthy inclusion for its powerful portrait of a woman (Babetida Sadjo) grappling with terrifying events from her homeland that still haunt her now — and the introduction of a priest into her life (Souléymane Sy Savané, a Film Independent Spirit Award nominee for 2008’s “Goodbye Solo”) who reactivates her trauma.
Written and directed by Ellie Foumbi, “Our Father, the Devil” will be released by Fandor and Cineverse in select theaters, including the Quad Cinema in New York City on August 25, and the Laemmle Royal in West Los Angeles on September 1. Watch the trailer, an IndieWire exclusive, below.
Per a synopsis, the film stars a riveting Sadjo as Marie, the head chef at a retirement home in small-town France. Her work routine is disrupted upon the arrival of a new priest (Savané) who elicits a visceral repulsion deep within her. When she realizes he’s the same man responsible for unspeakable acts committed in her hometown when she was a child, Marie is forced to reckon with her own darkest impulses.
“Our Father, the Devil” played the Venice and Tribeca film festivals, among others, where it received widespread acclaim for Cameroon-hailing Foumbi’s feature. “A cutting, at times unwieldy exploration of trauma and forgiveness, the enigmatic drama goes places you almost certainly won’t expect — and, once there, makes you wonder how you ever thought it could have gone anywhere else,” IndieWire’s sister site Variety wrote of the film earlier this year.
Watch the trailer for “Our Father, the Devil,” available exclusively on IndieWire, below.
