Synopsis
Joris Lachaise introduces us to the psychiatric hospital of Thiaroye, in the suburbs of Dakar, in the company of writer and filmmaker Khady Sylla. Through her lived experience of mental illness and its treatment, the film seeks to explore the recent history of Senegal: the country’s independence and the decolonization of psychiatry.
A word from Tënk
A space saturated with light where only the patients' faces and bodies exist. From its opening scene, Joris Lachaise's film plunges us into the limits of perception and of our senses. It finds us there where madness challenges us, we who define ourselves as "sane." In this hospital on the outskirts of Dakar, it is the patients who speak to us. They question us, challenge what we deem as certain. Here, mental illness is seen as part of the malaise of a post-colonial society. Trance scenes and magical rites, far from folklore, are healing modalities. But it is the gesture of this man wiping Khadi Sylla's tears that accompanies us in the darkness at the end of the film: what we are questioning, here, is our humanity.
Éva Tourrent
Filmmaker and Tënk's Artistic Director, France
