A Monthly Mental Health Film Series
Wednesday, June 20, 2012 – 7:30pm
Sweden 2008. Directors: PeÅ Holmquist, Suzanne Khardalian
This arresting documentary follows a young psychotherapist in Gaza as he struggles to provide therapy against a backdrop of armed clashes and his own family issues.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012 – 7:30pm
Canada/Great Britain 2002. Director: David Cronenberg
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, Lynn Redgrave, John Neville
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Randall F. White.
David Cronenberg’s magnificent, bleak Spider stars Ralph Fiennes in a tour-de-force performance as Dennis Clegg, nicknamed “Spider” during childhood because of a fascination with arachnids. After thirty years in a facility for the mentally ill, he is released to an East End London halfway house, where he receives little care or attention …
Wednesday, April 18, 2012 – 7:30pm
USA 1967. Director: Frederick Wiseman
Post-screening discussion with Robert Menzies, a
professor of sociology at Simon Fraser University
In his legendary first documentary, cinéma vérité master Frederick Wiseman leads us into the MCI-Bridgewater mental institution, a prison-hospital for the criminally insane run by the Massachusetts Department of Corrections. Wiseman shows us, without judgment, the incessant abuse of inmates as they are needlessly stripped bare, insulted, herded about, mocked, and taunted.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012 – 7:30pm
USA 2009. Director: Barbara Schroeder
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Rob Tarzwell
“Talhotblond” was the username of beautiful 18-year-old Jessi, a high-school senior from West Virginia. Jessi met Tommy, a buff, brave 18-year-old soldier (username: marinesniper) in an internet chat room, and the pair stuck up an intense, passionate, two-year on-line affair.
Dr. Bob Bechtel, a seemingly ordinary man in his early seventies‚
is a devoted husband and father and a respected psychology professor.
But Bechtel has a terrible secret. One night in 1955, while attending
college, Bechtel shot and killed a fellow student.
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 and married to others. They fall profoundly in love and soon
divorce their spouses, marry, and settle down to a joyful shared life
and musical partnership. The signs of Martin’s Alzheimer’s disease are
at first isolated, but their progression is relentless.
Wednesday December 21, 2011 7:30 pm
USA
2005.
Director: Caveh Zahedi
Cast: Caveh Zahedi, Rebecca Lord, Emily Morse, Amanda Henderson, Olia Natasha
Taking over from Woody Allen as cinema’s resident neurotic
narcissist, Caveh Zahedi turns self-confession into high art with this
self-deprecating and often cringe-worthy troll through his own sexual
obsessions. Zahedi plays “Caveh Zahedi,” a not-so-successful independent
filmmaker whose major relationships have been derailed by his
attraction to prostitutes — and, more to the point, his belief that he
should be brutally honest about it with his girlfriends. Framed as a
wedding-day confessional by Caveh, and shot during Zahedi’s real-life
(third) wedding, the film chronicles our hero’s romantic past.
Landing soundly in the truth-is-stranger-than-fiction realm, Crazy Love is the astonishing story of an obsessive roller-coaster relationship that first dominated newspaper headlines in the United States almost 50 years ago.
Wednesday October 19, 2011 – 7:30 pm
USA 2006. Director: Stanley Nelson
Post-screening discussion with Dale Beyerstein
The 1960s ushered in nearly two decades of intense social and cultural tumult — change was in the air, revolution on the horizon, and all things seemed possible. Many looked to transcendental meditation, free love, Black Power, or LSD. But for some, Jim Jones, the charismatic and forceful leader of Peoples Temple, offered the perfect balance of spiritual fulfilment and political commitment. Using survivor interviews and archival footage, this documentary tells the story of those who followed Jim Jones into the largest mass suicide/murder in history.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011 – 7:30pm
USA 2005. Director: Jeff Feuerzeig
An acclaimed look at indie-rock singer-songwriter and cartoonist Daniel Johnston, whose life has been marked by wild fluctuations due to his severe mental illness.Post-screening discussion with Luke Meat, Music Coordinator at CiTR 101.9 FM