An Open Window
Short Films and Mid-Lengths
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51m
Leaving December 15
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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A Single Word
Leaving December 15
Directed by Khady Sylla and Mariama Sylla | 63 mins | 2014
Begun by Sylla and completed by her sister, Mariama, after Khady’s death in 2013, "A Single Word" connects the essay film to the oral historical tradition of the griots—West African storytellers, musicians, and poets ... -
Beast
Leaving December 1
Directed by Benjamin Nicolas | 11 mins | 2021
While the opening of this Expressionistic short film—depicting a perfunctory exchange between a rideshare driver and his passenger about Christmas shopping—gives little indication as to the direction it’s headed in, then the ominou... -
Canticle of All Creatures
Directed by Miguel Gomes | 21 mins | 2006
This playful but sincere tribute to St. Francis takes the form of a cinematic triptych. From the present day, in which a guitar-wielding bard ambles through the historic center of Assisi, Gomes jumps back 800 years, reviving the saint himself in a lusciou...
