Wednesday, March 18, 2009 – 7:30pm
Great Britain 2008. Director: Leo Regan
With: Ruth Wilson, Rufus May
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Sean Flynn
VANCOUVER PREMIERE! │ Offering a disturbing and thought-provoking look at how society deals with mental illness, The Doctor Who Hears Voices uses a mix of documentary and drama to tell the true story of Ruth, a young doctor-in-training suspended from her job after telling her employers she has been feeling depressed and suicidal.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 – 7:30 PM
USA 2007. Director: Bill Rose
Post-screening discussion with Judy Graves and Bill Rose
A haunting, elegiac documentary to thwarted promise, This Dust of Words traces the life story of Elizabeth Wiltsee from a young writer of uncompromising talent to a lonely death at the age of 50, homeless and apparently beset by paranoid schizophrenia. With an IQ of 200, Elizabeth taught herself to read at the age of four and was translating classical Greek by the time she was ten.
‘Bag for a Bag’ Winter Clothing Drive – Feb 18 7:00pm
Receive a free bag of popcorn when you donate a bag of clothing.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009 – 7:30 PM
USA 2008. Director: Azazel Jacobs
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Endre Koritar
Co-sponsored by The Western Branch of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society
The idea for Momma’s Man came to the director one morning on a visit to his parents. On waking to find coffee and cereal waiting for him, filmmaker Azazel Jacobs wondered then why he had ever moved out. In the film, which revolves around the childhood regression of Mikey (Matt Boren), a thirty-something computer programmer with a wife and baby, Jacobs has merged his life into fiction by casting his real parents, Ken Jacobs, the noted avant-garde filmmaker and artist Flo Jacobs, a painter, in the roles of Mikey’s parents.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008 – 7:30 PM Vancouver Premiere!
USA 2007. Director: Cynthia Lester
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Michael Passmore and Dr. Ingrid Sochting
As a child growing up in suburban Granada Hills, California, the first time filmmaker Cynthia Lester realized something was really wrong with her mother was when school friends said they had seen her in the alley going through their dumpster. Born in Poland in 1944, and raised by her Aunt, an Auschwitz survivor, Eugenia Lester grew up in an austere communist society. She immigrated to America in 1974, and faced poverty and depression while struggling to raise a family as a single mother.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008 – 7:30 pm Vancouver Premiere!
Canada 2008. Director: Lyne Charlebois
Post-screening discussion with Dr John Wagner and Dr. Alina Wydra
Earning well over $1 million in Quebec, this certifiable box office smash in la belle province has yet to make it to English Canada in any significant way. And that’s a real shame, for Lyne Charlebois’ debut feature film is a stunner – a compelling, visually striking film featuring a standout, fearless performance from Isabelle Blais.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 – 7:30 pm Vancouver Premiere!
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Derryck Smith. Moderated by Dr. Harry Karlinsky.
Co-sponsored by Kelty Resource Centre; BC Mental Health and Addiction Services
Dr. Derryk Smith’s Speaking Notes
For the forty children who call it home, the Mulberry Bush School is their last chance. Excluded from school for extreme behaviour, and often having suffered severe emotional trauma, they are given three years at the Oxford boarding school to try to turn their lives around. Acclaimed documentary maker Kim Longinotto (Sisters in Law, Divorce Iranian Style, The Day I Will Never Forget) has once again turned her compassionate lens onto people living in extraordinary circumstances.
Wednesday, September 17 – 7:30pm
Canada 2008. Director: Yves-Christian Fournier
Post-screening discussion with Dammy Damstrom-Albach and Judy Davies.
Everything is most definitely not fine in this compelling feature debut from Quebecois director Yves-Christian Fournier. Sixteen-year-old Josh (Maxime Dumontier) wakes one morning to learn of the suicide of one of his best friends. Another young man is found dead, and then another – all victims of an apparent suicide pact that leaves four teens dead and Josh the only survivor of this group of five friends.
Wednesday, August 20 – 7:30pm
Summer Classics Series: Two Standout Comedies from the 1970s
USA 1978. Director: Mel Brooks
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Diane McIntosh.
Co-sponsored by Anxiety BC
Assuming the post of Chief of Staff at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for the Very, Very Nervous, Nobel Prize-winning psychiatrist Dr. Richard Thorndyke (Mel Brooks) comes across evidence of embezzlement and unexplained disappearances. He’s hustled off to a psychiatric convention by scheming Nurse Diesel (Cloris Leachman), she of the impossibly pointy breasts and Teutonic moustache, and her snivelling sidekick Dr. Montague (Harvey Korman), who has a predilection for S-M.
Wednesday, July 16 – 7:30pm
Summer Classics Series: Two Standout Comedies from the 1970s
USA 1979. Director: Hal Ashby
Post-screening discussion with Alanna Hendren
Co-sponsored by the Developmental Disabilities Association
Peter Seller’s Oscar-nominated performance in Being There is one of the most remarkable of his career. Directed by Hal Ashby (Harold and Maude, Shampoo, Coming Home), and adapted by Jerzy Kosinski from his short comic novel of the same name, the film stars Sellers as Chance, a developmentally challenged middle-aged man-child who works as a gardener for a wealthy Washington, D.C. citizen.
Wednesday, June 18 – 7:30pm
USA 2006. Director: Lizzie Gottlieb
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Vikram Dua
Co-sponsored by ACT – Autism Community Training Society
Filmmaker Lizzie Gottlieb’s brother Nicky was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism, when he was 21. Although people with Asperger’s can be highly intelligent, they are unable to pick up on social cues. Subtleties of body language, facial expression, tones, or gestures go unnoticed, and their own behaviour can strike others as bizarre and inappropriate. As a small child, Nicky demonstrated amazing abilities.