A Monthly Mental Health Film Series
Our “Frames of Mind” Summer Classics series this year features two of Polanski’s superb psychological horror films, both of which tackle the theme of a descent into madness with the iconoclastic director’s trademark emotional acuity, visual stylishness and blackly comic wit.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009- 7:30 PM Vancouver Premiere!
USA 2008. Director: Kimberly Reed
Post-Screening discussion with Dr. Anton Scamvougeras
This fascinating study of family dynamics traces the history and disparate trajectories of three brothers who grew up to lead unconventional lives.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009 – 7:30 PM
Belgium/Netherlands 2007. Director: Nic Balthazar Cast: Greg Timmermans, Laura Verlinden, Marijke Pinoy, Pol Goossen, Titus De Voogdt, Maarten Claeyssens
Post-screening discussion with Dr. Vikram Dua and Ms Teresa Triggiano (Harris)
Co-sponsored by ACT – Autism Community Training Society and the Kelty Resource Centre.
Virtual reality, live-action vérité style and docudrama combine in this teen angst story of a young boy with Asperger’s Syndrome.
VANCOUVER PREMIERE | When filmmaker Taliya Finkel was young, she never knew for sure whether her Uncle Sterik was an impostor or a true member of the family. Her father claimed his real brother had been murdered in a Ukrainian prison — and that the KGB had stolen his identity and sent a substitute to Israel.
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.