An Open Window
Short Films and Mid-Lengths
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51m
Directed by Khady Sylla | 52 mins | 2005
After an unsatisfactory attempt to make a film about the numerous mentally ill people who filled the streets of Dakar back in 1994, Sylla, in her own words “fell ill and crossed to the other side, seeing what others don’t see.” Now “living the experience from the inside,” Sylla produced "An Open Window," an empathetic portrait of her friend, Aminta Ngom, suffering under the burden of unspecified emotional disorder, and also a gesture of solidarity through self-exposure by Sylla, who is remarkably forthright about her own struggles, at one point dumping a mountain of prescription drug bottles from her purse on camera. A rigorous, conscientious interrogation of the dynamics between observed and observer, and a film about madness quite unlike any other.
Up Next in Short Films and Mid-Lengths
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Colobane Express
Directed by Khady Sylla | 52 mins | 1999
Losing ground to more modern forms of transit today, the colorfully painted “car rapide” minibuses that criss-cross the crowded streets and avenues of Dakar at breakneck speed carrying passengers and merchandise have been icons of the city since first appe... -
The Silent Monologue
Directed by Khady Sylla | 45 mins | 2008
Khady Sylla’s docudrama inquiry into the lives—inner and exterior—of Dakar’s female domestics, which employs scenes of improvised street theater, direct-address freestyle screeds, candid interviews, and inner monologue musings with the end of allowing its ...
