It’s 2016 in the small town of Saint Omer in north-eastern France, Laurence, a cultivated young Senegalese woman is on trial for infanticide. She doesn't deny the prosecution's version of events: despite being a loving mother, she consciously abandoned her 15-month-old daughter to the waves on a beach at night. But to the court’s general consternation, Laurence impassively refutes any guilt: her act was the result of sorcery meted out by her aunts back in Senegal.

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