Acclaimed French actress Sandrine Bonnaire won the International Film Critics Federation Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007 with her beautifully filmed directorial debut Her name is Sabine.
The film tells the story of two sisters - Sandrine herself, one of France's most successful actresses and holder of two César awards, and that of her severely autistic sister Sabine. The contrast between these two women's lives could not be more stark - making for compelling, if not disquieting viewing. More central to the film is the disparity between the pre and post-institutionalized Sabine. Images of the youthful vibrant Sabine are interspersed with footage of the Sabine of today - heavier, sluggish, sometimes drooling, at times violent and frequently distressed.
This is no gratuitous voyeuristic journey. The documentary is a campaigning film aimed directly at the French government - highlighting the fact that there are no publicly funded small-scale facilities for people over the age of 20 with disabilities such as Sabine's. The juxtaposition of the images of the vivacious Sabine of old with the listless Sabine of today, drives the point home.
Sandrine explains that Sabine spent five years of her adulthood institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital, doped with powerful medication, sometimes in isolation and on occasion, in a straightjacket. The harrowing details of Sabine's incarceration are told only through Sandrine's affecting narration; but the film does shows the shell of the woman that has emerged. Her abilities are diminished, her beauty is gone and her anxiety is evident. Throughout the film Sabine is repeatedly heard asking her sister for reassurances about when she will next see her.

English captions