When we launched the Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Series back in September 2002, we had no idea it would one day become one of the longest running film series in Pacific Cinémathèque history. As initially proposed by Dr Harry Karlinsky of the UBC Department of Psychiatry, Frames of Mind was created to promote awareness and education around mental health issues, to address the issue of stigma, to challenge the often erroneous representation of mental illness in media, and to do so using the ubiquitous and highly relatable medium of cinema.
As we begin our tenth year of the Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Series at the Pacific Cinémathèque, we thought it an appropriate time to look back over the 144 feature-length and short films we’ve presented thus far, and, over the next year, present a selection of some of the most memorable.
The films we’ve chosen to show in this 12-month retrospective are as follows:
The Devil and Daniel Johnston • USA 2005. Director: Jeff Feuerzeig
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple • USA 2006. Director Stanley Nelson
Crazy Love • USA 2007. Director: Dan Klores
I Am A Sex Addict • USA 2005. Director: Caveh Zahedi
Elling • Norway 2001. Director: Petter Næss
Talhotblond • USA 2009. Director: Barbara
Momma’s Man • USA 2008. Director: Azazel Jacobs
A Song for Martin (En sång för Martin) • Sweden 2001. Director: Bille August
Spider • Canada/Great Britain 2002. Director: David Cronenberg
Titicut Follies • USA 1967. Director: Frederick Wiseman
Young Freud in Gaza • Sweden 2008. Directors: PeÅ Holmquist, Suzanne Khardalian
The Killer Within • USA 2006. Director: Macky Alston
Wednesday, August 17, 2011 – 7:30pm
USA
1974.
Director: John Cassavetes
Cast: Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands, Katherine Cassavetes
Post-screening discussion with Michael van den Bos
A classic of American cinema and a hard-hitting look at the difficulties
faced by contemporary women, Cassavetes’s self-distributed film earned
two Academy Award nominations.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011 – 7:30pm
USA
1966.
Director: Mike Nichols
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sandy Dennis, George Segal
Post-screening discussion with Michael van den Bos
This
controversial and groundbreaking film follows a booze-soaked evening of
domestic blisslessness that culminates with the brutal exposing of
long-held illusions.
For Better or For Worse
Two classics of American cinema that illuminate the darker corners of marriage and family life
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974) are remarkable films that pushed boundaries in their time and
have retained their power to emotionally connect with an audience. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and A Woman Under the Influence
(1974) are remarkable films that pushed boundaries in their time and
have retained their power to emotionally connect with an audience. Both
films are centred in the domestic sphere and show couples at war with
each other — both needing and hating simultaneously. In these films,
both men and women struggle with the roles society has imposed — but it
is the women, with fewer choices available to them, who suffer the most.
Martha, from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is
the very clever, college-educated daughter of the president of the
school at which her husband is an associate professor. In a time when it
was very rare for women to have careers of their own, all Martha’s
hopes and dreams, her very identity, centre on her husband – and he has
proved a great disappointment to her. Mabel, from A Woman Under the Influence,
also looks to her husband for her identity, asking him to tell her
“what” to be, insisting she’ll “be anything” he wants. Unsure of her
abilities as a wife or mother, Mabel tries to enforce a scenario of
happiness — one that is as paper-thin as her sense of self. As the
couples in these two films come together and fall apart, we are left
with a new appreciation of the depths to which love can take us.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 – 7:30pm
Canada
2010.
Director: Daniel Grou aka Podz
Cast: Robert Naylor, Claude Legault, Martin Dubreuil, Eugénie Beaudry, Blaise Tardif
Post-screening discussants: Karla Braber, Dr. Marlene M. Moretti, Dr. Chris Booth
This gritty slice of documentary-style social realism tells the story of
Tommy, who at age 10 ½ is already considered a hopeless case by
Quebec’s youth protection system.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011 7:30pm
2010. Director: Klara Van Es
Post-screening discussion with Cathie Borrie, R.N. and Dr. Wilkins-Ho.
VANCOUVER PREMIERE! One of the first films about Alzheimer’s as seen through the eyes of those who suffer from it.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 – 7:30pm
USA 2009. Director: Chico Colvard
Post-screening discussion with Allan Wade
“As a 10-year-old, Chico Colvard accidentally shot his older sister in
the leg. This seemingly random act detonated a chain reaction that
exposed unspeakable realities and shattered his family. Thirty years
later, in his film Family Affair, Colvard ruptures the secrecy
and silence again. As he bravely visits his relatives, what unfolds is a
highly personal film — uncompromising, raw, and cathartic.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011 – 7:30pm
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Dave Unger and Dr. Peter Suedfeld
Explores our seemingly insatiable appetite for the amorality of reality television by re-imagining the infamous Milgram experiment of the early 1960s.
A stunning documentary following a young gay couple who were brutally attacked while holding hands after leaving a bar in Sydney’s gay district — and the following crises.