IDFA 2005
Une fenêtre ouverte
An Open Window
Khady Sylla
Senegal
2005
52 min
n.a.
In 1994, filmmaker and auteur Khady Sylla attempted to film a documentary about homeless psychiatric patients who roam the streets of Dakar, but the images were overexposed and appeared to be unusable. Some of them now form the beginning of another attempt by Sylla to portray insanity. In the past years, the director herself has also suffered the pain of a deeply troubled mind - she has crossed over "to the other side." Sylla feels drawn to her main subject, the expressive Aminta Ngom, who spends her days confined to the courtyard of her family's house. Despite the simplistic use of camera, the film is complex and layered, and Sylla relates to Ngom in different ways: as a director who is aware of her film crew, as an equal beside her neurotic friend, and as a narrator who looks into the camera and describes the mental state of her subject with stylised, powerful words. The intimacy of the shared experiences is disturbed by the intrinsically unequal relationship between director and psychiatric patient. is simultaneously a portrait, a self-portrait and a lucid illustration of damaged self-awareness in which no sense of time, but only moments exist.
Credits
Screening copy
Athenaise
Athenaise
Director
Cinematography
Screenplay
Editing
Narration
Narrator
Co-director