ReelMadnessFilmFestival2000
Program Films and discussions about mental illness and recovery
this festival is a special project of MOVIE MONDAY
Thursday Jan. 13 6:30 Opening GalaThe connection between wellness and artistic expression
Feature Artist - Linda Downey
more information and a poem by Linda Downey
Music by Friends of Music an innovative, a now 10 year old society promoting sound relationships...
| Short - Sea of Souls (19 min Canada 1998) |
 Chantelle Tucker presented her lyrical and well produced film at Movie Monday last year after it's premier at the Victoria Independent Film Festival (this year Feb 4-10). In it the film maker explores her deep emotional connection with killer whales. Chantelle will join us again for the festival and to elaborate on the spiritual themes in her rich, westcoast visual poem.
| Feature - The Living Museum (81min USA 1999) |
 The Living Museum is an art community in a downsized New York mental institution (Creedmoor Psychiatric Center) where every inch of the 40,000 square foot space is treated like a canvas. The Living Museum illuminates the life and work of artists who are patients and graduates of the Creedmoor. Dr. Janos Marton, carismatic director co-founder and seven of his patients/artists illustrate how it works and how art can be so necessary in the lives of many who are "afflicted " with mental illness. By film maker Jessica Yu, whose films include Academy Award winning Breathing Lessons:The Life and Work of Mark O'Brien a portrait of a poet-journalist who has lived for four decades confined to an iron lung.
Friday Jan. 14 6:30
Women Survivors and Creators - or making lemonade when life sometimes deals you lemons
| Short - Why? (12 min Canada 1990) |
 Carol Halstead will be with us for the festival and to present this brilliantly illustrated rant about her life - why she, at 60, has gone back to art school (and 9 years later is still working toward a masters degree and "taking as long as she can to complete it")Using a narrative voice and various visual techniques, she touches on experiences that resonate for many women, including marriage, mothering, welfare, work, isolation, depression, survival, and strength. I met Carol in Toronto when she was presenting her film at Rendezvous With Madness and spent some time with her on my arm around the city. I'm thrilled to have her speak to her film and to share with her the other gems I've gathered.
Feature - Dialogues With Madwomen (90 min USA 1993) |
 By popular request. This film, with a discussion involving many local service providers and people who sometimes need to use those services, was the catalyst for one of the best discussion forums of last year. It's a provacative film from award winning filmmaker Allie Light that challenges through real experiences the way people are treated, and sometimes mistreated, by our mental health system . Dialogues is harrowing in places but over all it is a positive portrait of some very strong survivors of our society - of mental illness, abuse and sometimes startlingly bad "treatment". It's an independent and inspired consumer/survivor/expatient's insight of women's experience of madness and recovery.
In Allie Light's words "My partner, Irving Saraf, and I made Dialogues With Madwomen on a shoestring, couldn't get any funding & mostly used our own money. We spent almost five years on it & didn't expect the film to make much of a splash. But it certainly did. The film has slowly made its way around the world, having an effect on whoever sees it." R Adult themes and some disturbing material, please stay for a discussion. |
Saturday Jan 15 6:30
Shrink Rap Clinical Counsellor David Stewart will join us for a discussion of
the role of counselling and media treatment of the profession of therapist.
| Short - The Saint Inspector (5 min UK 1996) |
This Bolex Brothers claymation marvel defies description but fits creatively into tonight's theme.
Short - Shrink (30 min Canada 1998) |
Shrink, by Toronto based filmmaker Tim Hamilton, follows the stream of consciousness of one man during his traumatic first visit to a psychoanalyst.
Feature - Analyze This (USA 1999) |
 Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal As the box says "New York's most powerful gangster is about to get in touch with his feelings. YOU try telling him his 50 minutes is up. DeNiro deftly spoofs his famous wiseguy roles to play a powerful New York crime family racketeer, Paul Vitti. Crystal, is a psychotherapist, Ben Sobel, who has just a few days to resolve Vitti's emotional crisis and turn him into a happy well adjusted gangster." These guys are GOOD!! Warning: lotsa rough language 14A rating
Sunday Jan 16 Afternoon 1:30
Short - Little Dark Poet (5.5 min UK 1998) |
 | A fun little claymation piece about the screenwriter's muse. Again Bolex Brothers magic. |
Short - James O'Reilly In Parkdale (9.5 min Canada 1997) |
 In this true life account of his uncle's murder, playright James O'Reilly takes us on a walking tour of Parkdale, once a summer playground of Toronto, now a holding tank for the city's drug addicts, street-people, and the mental hospital's out patients. By Alex Pugley who lives there.
Feature - Working Like Crazy (54 min Canada 1999) |
 Most psychiatric survivors who've been through the mental health system face poverty, housing challenges and unemployment. But the six who are profiled here have survived by creating their own jobs, training and support systems. These productive people are part of a unique community overseen by the Ontario Council of Alternative Businesses.
WORKING LIKE
CRAZY is a warm, funny and moving film. It is about people surviving, reciaiming their lives and asserting the power of hope.
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Sunday Evening Jan. 16 6:30
Short - Sea Vitamins (9.5 min UK 1998) |
"A beguiling evocation of life by the sea" A rich expression of why some people need to live by the sea - filmed in England by Kun Chang, a Dane now living in Montreal, hundreds of miles from the sea. He hasn't discovered Victoria yet. ---------------------
| Feature - Cosi (100 min Australia 1996) |
 "Fun, fresh and thoroughly entertaining, Cosi is the acclaimed comedy about a colorful circle of friends just crazy enough to follow an impossible dream! A first time director is thrilled to land a job with a small show...that is, until he meets the outrageous "performers" he'll be working with! An offbeat group with big time ambitions that far-outweigh their talents, these , nutty friends are nonetheless determined to overcome the odds! Featuring stars from the comedy hits Muriel's Wedding (Toni Collette) and Strictly Ballroom (Barry Otto), Cosi proves taking the wildest risk...can end up earning the greatest reward!" That's what the box says.
But the film takes on a slightly more poignant feeling when presented in our theatre that was originally built with psycho-drama in mind. Words like "nutty" and "crazy" can haunt people challenged with mental illness. We can take ownership of these labels and the baggage that comes with the stereotypes. Is it OK to portray people in a psychiatric hospital this way? Maybe we'll talk about that.
This is a delightful film full of insight. It has some precarious and possibly triggering passages - so some discretion should be used. 14A rated
Monday Jan 17 6:30
Feature - Holding The Sun (39.5 min. 1999) |
 HOLDING THE SUN is the story of the Millar family's desperate attempts, over a period of two years, to save their beloved son from the insidious symptoms of schizophrenia.
Canadian Presenter Director Peter Campbell. Penny Joy and Peter Campbell of Gumboot Productions have a special independent documentary film partnership here in Victoria. Movie Monday has been proud to have presented Art of Compassion and Kuper Island: Return to the Healing Circle (at REEL MADNESS last year). Their special ability is to approach difficult and complex social issues with great sensitivity.
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