Frames of Mind

Wednesday, December 21, 2005 - 7:30 pm
USA, 2004. Director: Jessica Yu
Post-screening discussion with Ramon Kubicek
Co-sponsored by Gallery Gachet and the Art Studios and The Ubyssey

In 1973, at a Catholic poorhouse in Chicago, an 81-year-old retired and isolated janitor named Henry Darger quietly died. After Darger’s death, when his landlords went to clean out his one-room apartment, they found an astonishing and monumental artistic legacy. Piled all over the cramped apartment were hundreds of brilliant watercolours, featuring disturbing and mysteriously beautiful images of little girls in the throes of apocalyptic battles with evil forces.

Preceded by:

BREATHING LESSONS: THE LIFE AND WORK OF MARK O’BRIEN

USA, 1996. Director: Jessica Yu
Jessica Yu won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Documentary Short for this honest and intimate portrait of an artist who lived for four decades paralyzed by polio and confined to an iron lung.

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Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - 7:30 pm
USA 1996. Director: Julian Schnabel
Cosponsored by Gallery Gachet and the Art Studios and The Ubyssey

In 1979, 18-year-old graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was sleeping in a cardboard box in a New York City park. Within three years, this Haitian-American child of middle-class parents was an ascendant star of the frenetic contemporary art scene ofManhattan in the 1980s. Marketed by his agent as “the true voice of the gutter”, Basquiat first gained attention as a graffiti artist whose neatly printed legends, signed SAMO, were found all over the city.

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Wednesday, October 21, 2005 - 7:30 pm
Great Britain/France/Japan 1998. Director: John Maybury
Post-screening discussion with Ramon Kubicek
Cosponsored by Gallery Gachet and the Art Studios and The Ubyssey

“One of the nastiest and most truthful portraits of the artist-as-monster ever filmed” (Stephen Holden, New York Times), Love Is the Devil offers a riveting and disquieting depiction of a riveting and disquieting painter. Recognized during his lifetime as “England’s greatest living painter,” Francis Bacon (played here in a fearless, astonishing performance by Derek Jacobi) created violent and disturbing paintings portraying the human body in all its ugliness and anguish — his works a constant probing of the horrors of existence.

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Wednesday, September 28, 2005 - 7:30 pm
France/United Kingdom/Netherlands 1990. Director: Robert Altman
Post-screening discussion with: Ramon Kubicek
Cosponsored by Gallery Gachet and the Art Studios

An unflinching and powerful portrait of the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, acknowledged today as
one of the world’s greatest artists, but in his lifetime completely unrecognized.

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Thursday, August 18, 2005 - 7:30 pm
United Kingdom / Canada 2002. Director: David Cronenberg

David Cronenberg’s magnificent, bleak Spider stars Ralph Fiennes in a tour-de-force performance as Dennis Clegg, nicknamed “Spider” by his mother during his childhood because of his fascination with arachnids and their webs. Spider has spent the last thirty years in a facility for the mentally ill.

Preceded by

Patricia Grey

Canada, 2004. Director: Anne Koizumi

A dark animated short about the haunted world of a woman, Patricia Grey, whose daughter has been strangled with her skipping rope. The viewer sees Patricia as she is led through her excruciating and painful interrogation about her daughter’s death.

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Thursday July 21, 2005 - 7:30 pm
Canada 1979. Director: David Cronenberg
Post-screening discussion with David Spaner

Struggling with a crumbling marriage, Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar) undergoes an experimental psychiatric therapy that encourages her to purge her emotional turmoil by embracing and fully experiencing her rage. Practiced by the charismatic Dr Raglan (Oliver Reed) at the isolated Somafree Institute, this new treatment is not without its side effects.

Preceded by

Birthday

Canada, 2004. Director: Erös

Martha prepares a birthday cake for her daughter Mira. When a young man arrives with his best wishes, Martha dismisses him. Meanwhile, cocooned in a dark cavity of the basement, Mira’s restless sleep ends abruptly, as she awakes covered in blood.

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Thursday, June 16, 2005 - 7:30 pm
Australia/United Kingdom, 1996. Director: Scott Hicks
Post-screening discussion with Dr Mark Welch

An unexpected international box office sensation, Shine grossed well over $100 million
worldwide and garnered seven Academy Award nominations (including Best Film), with
newcomer Geoffrey Rush taking home the Best Actor Award. The film is based on the
true story of David Helfgott, an Australian pianist and child prodigy who is emotionally
brutalized by his father

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NEIGHBOURS: FREUD AND HITLER IN VIENNA

Canada, 2003. Dir: Manfred Becker
Post-screening discussant: Manfred Becker
THURS. MAY 12th at 7:30 pm

THE MACHINIST

USA/Spain, 2003. Dir: Brad Anderson
Post-screening discussant: Dr. Roland Atkinson
FRI. MAY 13th at 7:30 pm

“STORMY WEATHER”

Belgium/France/Iceland, 2003. Dir: Solveig Anspach
Post-screening discussant: Dr. Laura Chapman
SAT. MAY 14th at 7:30 pm

“OUT OF THE SHADOW”

USA, 2004. Dir: Susan Smiley
Post-screening discussant: Susan Smiley
Introduced by Mayor Larry Campbell and Karen O’Shannacery
SUN. MAY 15th at 7:30 pm
A Benefit for the Lookout Emergency Aid Society

SPECIAL WORKSHOPS:

“Treating Tony Soprano” with Dr. Roland Atkinson: Sat. May 14th at 2:00 pm
“The Sterilization of Leilani Muir” with Leilani Muir and Jay Chalke: Sun. May 15th at 2:00 pm

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Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 7:30 pm
USA 1972. Director: Peter Robinson
Post-screening discussion with Richard W. Adams& Andrew Feldmár

In 1971, a trio of filmmakers was granted permission by its residents to film for six weeks in a unique home for “mentally troubled” individuals in London, UK. The Archway Community was based in large part on the theories of the late radical psychiatrist R.D. Laing, in particular his belief that a communal living arrangement could avoid the hierarchical structure of the usual doctor-patient relationship and break the cycle of people being fruitlessly shuttled between mental hospitals and their often dysfunctional homes.

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Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 7:30 pm
Israel 2002. Director: Hadar Friedlich
Post-screening discussion with Rabbi Philip Bregman and Dr. Steve Taylor

In a Jewish Orthodox village in Israel, Tamar - a twelve year old girl – prepares for her Bat-Mitzva (Confirmation), which will take place on Passover. She becomes convinced that she is impure and grows increasingly scared and depressed. She forces herself into an endless ritual of cleaning, while attempting to silence her unyielding whispering inner obsessional thoughts which detail every inch of her relentless guilt, over and over again.

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Thurday, February 17, 2005 - 7:30 pm
West Germany 1978. Director: Reinhard Hauff
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Robert Stowe
Co-sponsored by the UBC Dept of Psychiatry Neuropsychiatry Program and the Lower Mainland Brain Injury Association

A disturbing and suspenseful film, “Knife in the Head” examines the catastrophic effects on one man of being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dr. Berthold Hoffman (Bruno Ganz) is a leading biogeneticist, married to his work and disinterested in politics. One night he goes to meet his estranged wife at the youth centre where she works.

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Thursday, January 20, 2005 - 7:30 pm
Sweden 2001. Director: Bille August
Co-sponsored by the Richmond Mental Health Services Older Adult Team and the Consulate General of Sweden in Vancouver.

A Song for Martin tells the story of two people late in life who find sudden, delirious love, and then lose it in one of the most painful ways possible – to Alzheimer’s disease. Barbara (Viveka Seldahl), a concert violinist, and Martin (Sven Wollter), a world-famous conductor and composer, meet for the first time when both are middle-aged.

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