Une fenêtre ouverte

Khady Sylla was an established novelist when she released her first film in 1997, after which time she engaged the medium with intensity until her death in 2013 at age fifty. Une fenetre ouverte, her third film and second feature-length documentary, is an autobiographical work focusing on her relationship with Aminta Ngom, a friend with whom Sylla shared the experience of living a life marked by mental illness. Une fenetre ouverte does not medicalize either woman’s condition; rather, Sylla chooses to focus on the personal and familial dimensions of what she terms “la folie.” Throughout, Sylla reflects on the dynamic between herself and Ngom, probing the boundary between self and other, the power of empathy, and the possibility of expressing suffering.