Hot Docs 2008

French actress Sandrine Bonnaire uses intimate home-movie footage to create a loving portrait of Sabine, her 38-year-old autistic sister, and to trace her behavioural decline. Personal footage filmed by the actress over a 25-year period shows the marked change and harm that institutional living has had on Sabine's personality and temperament. Once high-functioning and happy, Sabine is now lethargic and lonely with diminished capabilities. Is this the result of institutional psychiatric care or disease progression? Bonnaire visits her sister, now living in a home in the Charente region of France, and looks back on Sabine's history of mental illness. Her Name Is Sabine is an emotional questioning of psychiatric diagnosis, the agonizing decisions involved in adult long-term care and the lack of specialized institutions and support. The film is an urgent plea to acknowledge, value, support and involve differently-abled individuals in society.
-Angie Driscoll

Co-presented with Alliance Française de Toronto.