Omar Killed Me

A wealthy woman is found dead in the cellar of her house in the south of France. On the wall there is a sentence written in blood naming her gardener. Omar Raddad is a Moroccan gardener who cannot read or write French. He is arrested and convicted. Years later a writer begins going through the file: the writing on the wall is grammatically wrong, tests that should have been done at the scene were not, and some of the evidence was never examined. Roschdy Zem directs. Sami Bouajila plays Omar. The story is real. The case that began with the killing of Ghislaine Marchal in 1991 was argued over in France for years. Raddad was convicted; in 1996 he was partly pardoned by the president and left prison, but the conviction was never quashed and he continued to maintain his innocence. The matter at the centre is language. Omar cannot defend himself; his French is insufficient, his statements are misrendered, and he does not understand what is happening in the courtroom. The narrative runs on two strands: Omar in prison and the writer's investigation. The second carries the information. Roschdy Zem is known as an actor and this is among his notable work as a director. The film treats the part racism played in the case directly, which was argued over on its release in France. Who it is for: viewers who follow narratives of miscarriage of justice and French social drama. Who it is not for: the film takes a side, the opposing view is weakly built, and the narrative gets buried in legal detail.