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. – Hot Docs
2008
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