The filmmakers' 21-year-old daughter journeys from locked-down psych wards and diagnostic labels toward expansive worlds of creativity, connection, and greater meaning. Featuring insights from trauma experts and others, the film challenges the widespread idea that mental illness should be understood purely in biological terms, revealing the myriad ways that madness has meaning beyond brain chemistry.
Related Movies
Tarnation (2003)
Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.
After You (2013)
"My mother is spending all her time with her dying father. I’m spending all my time filming her. As the end is getting closer, my mother and I start doing the filming more and more together. It becomes our way of dealing with the time we have left." —Marius Dybwad Brandrud
Wintopia (2019)
IDFA and Canadian filmmaker Peter Wintonick had a close relationship for decades. He was a hard worker and often far from home, visiting festivals around the world. In 2013, he died after a short illness. His daughter Mira was left behind with a whole lot of questions, and a box full of videotapes that Wintonick shot for his Utopia project. She resolved to investigate what sort of film he envisaged, and to complete it for him.
The Story of a Butcher Shop (2013)
The Kitades run a butcher shop in Kaizuka City outside Osaka, raising and slaughtering cattle to sell the meat in their store. The seventh generation of their family's business, they are descendants of the buraku people, a social minority held over from the caste system abolished in the 19th century that is still subject to discrimination. As the Kitades are forced to make the difficult decision to shut down their slaughterhouse, the question posed by the film is whether doing this will also result in the deconstruction of the prejudices imposed on them. Though primarily documenting the process of their work with meticulous detail, Aya Hanabusa also touches on the Kitades' participation in the buraku liberation movement. Hanabusa's heartfelt portrait expands from the story of an old-fashioned family business competing with corporate supermarkets, toward a subtle and sophisticated critique of social exclusion and the persistence of ancient prejudices.
Love, Ava (2020)
Keenly aware that his niece is going through a particularly rough time at home, Uncle James teaches Ava Dee how to use the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera. As an experiment, he tells her to shoot whatever she wants and he'll edit it into a film.
A Life Like Any Other (2024)
Over many years, the director’s father filmed his family life almost obsessively. His daughter’s birth, his son’s first steps, and always Valérie, the young mother. An impressive fund of material which their now grown-up daughter Faustine appropriates to tell quite a different story: that of a woman who sees her role as a mother and its demands take away her freedom step by step.
Only Yesterday: The Carpenters Story (2007)
Documentary about brother and sister duo The Carpenters, one of the biggest-selling pop acts of the 1970s, but one with a destructive and complex secret that ended in tragedy.
Stories Are in Our Bones (2020)
In this layered short film, filmmaker Janine Windolph takes her young sons fishing with their kokum (grandmother), a residential school survivor who retains a deep knowledge and memory of the land. The act of reconnecting with their homeland is a cultural and familial healing journey for the boys, who are growing up in the city. It’s also a powerful form of resistance for the women.
Cholesterol: The Great Bluff (2016)
The link between heart disease and blood cholesterol is a medical dogma that has existed for the past fifty years and has led to the development of a billion-dollar, low-fat, food industry, as well as to statins, a drug that lower “bad cholesterol” levels, so it has became one of the most prescribed medicines in the world. But more and more researchers are openly questioning the mainstream opinions on cholesterol…
Not Just a Statistic: Stories of Survivors (2024)
The story of the South Shore Resource and Advocacy Center, five survivors of domestic violence, and their experience in the Massachusetts justice system.
Soaring Over America (2010)
Created from public television's popular Over series, this is a tour unlike any other! Fly above landscapes and landmarks in Alaska; the Pacific Northwest; California; the Southwest; Chicago; New York City; Washington, D.C.; and everywhere in between.
Voices from the Shadows (NaN)
‘Voices from the Shadows’ shows the brave and sometimes heartrending stories of five ME patients and their carers, along with input from Dr Nigel Speight, Prof Leonard Jason and Prof Malcolm Hooper. These were filmed and edited between 2009 and 2011, by the brother and mother of an ME patient in the UK. It shows the devastating consequences that occur when patients are disbelieved and the illness is misunderstood. Severe and lasting relapse occurs when patients are given inappropriate psychological or behavioural management: management that ignores the severe amplification of symptoms that can be caused by increased physical or mental activity or exposure to stimuli, and by further infections. A belief in behavioural and psychological causes, particularly when ME becomes very severe and chronic, following mismanagement, is still taught to medical students and healthcare professionals in the UK. As a consequence, situations similar to those shown in the film continue to occur.
Papa (2002)
This is Jon Alpert's portrait of his father's struggles with growing old and nearing the end of life.
The Dollhouse (2017)
Kyra Gardner's loving tribute to growing up in the world of the psycho killer doll, Chucky.
The Enemies of Reason (2007)
Documentary written and presented by scientist Richard Dawkins, in which he seeks to expose "those areas of belief that exist without scientific proof, yet manage to hold the nation under their spell", including mediumship, psychokinesis, acupuncture, and other forms of alternative medicine.
