Not Just a Bad Day: Living with Bipolar Disorder
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 – 7:30pm
Canada 2007. Director: Gillian Hrankowski
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Paul Termansen, M.D., F.R.C.P.C and director Gillian Hrankowski.
Co-sponsored by Vancouver Coastal Health North Shore Community Psychiatric Services.
On the surface, Mike, Erin, and Martha appear to have little in common, but all live under the shadow of bipolar disorder (once known as manic depression), a complex mental illness marked by significant disturbances in mood. Mike is a charismatic young man whose partying lifestyle and abuse of recreational drugs foreshadow a severe manic episode that has him committed to a psychiatric ward.
Charlize Theron won the Best Actress Oscar for her fearless portrayal of notorious serial murderer Aileen Wuornos, who was executed in Florida in 2002 after being convicted of killing six men over a nine month period. Wuornos confessed to seven murders, including that of a policeman, but claimed to have killed only in self-defence.
A 2003 New Yorker article entitled “Jumpers: The Fatal Grandeur of the Golden Gate Bridge” declared San Francisco’s iconic monument the most favoured suicide destination in the world. Filmmaker Eric Steele cites the article as the inspiration for The Bridge, a documentary intended, he says, to “peer into the darkest corners of the human mind and challenge us to think and talk about suicide in profoundly different ways.”
Is it ever rational to choose death? Is it ever a good decision? For 77-year-old Bob Stern, there is little doubt. A successful businessman, husband, and father, an exemplar of the self-made generation that built post-war America, Bob believes that taking his own life in the face of serious, possibly terminal, illness is what an all-American hero should do. 
Woody Allen’s fictional documentary in the key of Spinal Tap concerns “human chameleon” Leonard Zelig (Allen), a colourless man who becomes a celebrity phenomenon in the 1920s and 30s due to his unique ability to completely change his physical appearance to look like those around him. 
Written by and starring Keith Black, Get the Script to Woody Allen is based on an actual incident in which Black, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, tracked down his idol at a Manhattan jazz club and slipped him the script of I Will Survive, a screenplay based on Black’s troubles with women. The famed director took the script, smiled meekly, and trotted off. That was several years ago. Mr. Allen has yet to call.
He barks, spits, and shakes. He just can’t help it. Duncan McKinlay has Tourette’s Syndrome. At age 7, he noticed what he called a devil in his head that made his life hell. In his teens, it wasn’t a question of whether to kill himself, but when. Life’s a Twitch takes us on a quirky ride into Duncan’s world, where he’s learned to turn his nightmare into a celebration.
In every school in North America, it’s likely that at least one child has Tourette’s Syndrome (TS). These children are often stigmatized and almost always misunderstood. This highly acclaimed documentary presents a candid look at the lives of children growing up with this baffling condition. 