Dominik Moll’s deft, enthralling police procedural charts the efforts of a police unit to solve the grisly murder of teenaged Clara Royer (Lula Cotton-Frapier) on the titular evening, a cold case that comes to haunt detectives Yohan (Bastien Bouillon), the ambitious new bureau chief, and Marceau (Bouli Lanners), a world-weary veteran.

Inspired by one story from the many in Pauline Guéna’s non-fiction account of her time embedded with the Criminal Investigation department of Versailles in 2016, Moll relocates the crime to the mountainous region of Grenoble, offering a stunning backdrop to the labyrinthine, three-year investigation he recounts. As the suspects, all men with whom Clara was involved, unbeknownst to even her closest friends, mount up, the search becomes a broader examination of endemic misogyny and male violence towards women.

Online ticket purchasers for The Night of the 12th will automatically be entered into a competition with a chance to win a French-language Blu-ray bundle and a signed poster of the film Saint Omer courtesy of Picturehouse Entertainment.  

Notes by David O’Mahony