Film Categories: Mental Health

  • After Eden

    “ … a beautiful journey through the wasteland of displaced souls, loosely structured around biblical stories. A man becomes a traveller after his home is destroyed; the story expands to examine those who are literally or metaphorically homeless. In this alien world, existing between fact and fiction, a provocative question is asked: Where does one go after losing paradise?” – Liz Czach, Toronto International Film Festival “Part diary film … part urban ethnography … part excavation in search of faith amidst landscapes of concrete, it is a compilation film assembled from rolls of super-8 and 16mm that I shot, hand…

  • Pineapple

    The film explores a triangular relationship between three women that explodes into violence when the woman controlling the relationship doesn’t get her way. It also explores the reality that to possess or control someone is not the same as loving them. Laura is a woman who desperately wants to possess her lover, but is insecure and unable to fully love her. In beginning Laura and Carrie are a happy couple, but as Laura has an affair with Cat, the relationship becomes unstable. Unable to control Carrie, Laura turns to physical and emotional abuse as her way of keeping Carrie under…

  • Thirst

    “Tammy Ballaban wants to leave her mark, to be remembered, to stay safe. So she stops eating. ‘Thirst’ is an unconventional and beautifully structured meditation about eating disorders, hunger and desire, our need for identity, and control. A sumptuous collage of image and sound reflects the amorphous dialectic between conscious and unconscious drives.” – Lynne Fernie Selected screenings: Documentary Channel (Ontario), broadcast, 2006; Toronto Worldwide Short Film Festival, 2002; Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Toronto, 2002; Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, 2002.

  • Lift

    Addiction leads individuals to commit crimes against others in violent ways, with no awareness of the implications of their actions on themselves or society. In an effort to get high, Jerry breaks into his doctor’s house – leading to a confrontation of unexpected consequences.

  • Remedy

    Some kind of defense mechanism kept me from appreciating just how horrible he was. I had never been depressed before, sad – heartbroken – bored – yes, but not depressed. I guess it took me a few weeks to stop pretending that there must be some mistake. (LH)

  • Cat Swallows Parakeet and Speaks!

    A gothic romp through a crumbling hospital. The last time you saw a tabloid, maybe the headline read “Man Gives Birth to Nine-Pound Baby Girl,” or perhaps, “Melt Fat Away As You Eat Your Favorite Foods!” Taking such absurd claims as its starting point, “Cat Swallows Parakeet and Speaks!” puts the “Arabian Nights” saga through a surreal feminist revision. In the classic tale, a mythical character must tell stories to survive a man who is trying to murder her and all other women. In this version, Scheherazade is a strikingly beautiful model recovering in hospital after an ulcer operation. She…

  • Closer to Heaven

    Using the weather as a metaphor for the stages of grief, “Closer to Heaven” is a good-bye poem and homage to my Dad. Shot on Super 8 and optically printed. “Who can really distinguish between the sea and what’s reflected in it, or tell the difference between falling rain and loneliness?” – Haruki Murakami

  • Dear Mom

    “Dear Mom” is a story of the formation of a girl’s identity in relation to her powerful mother, her matriarchal family, and domestic fantasies created by melodramas of the 40s and 50s. When the young girl’s fantasy of matricide comes true with the untimely death of her Mother, she finds herself at a crossroads. She is left to reconstruct her own identity and find out that her Mother is more complex than she imagines.

  • Old Lady

    “There is more tenderness packed in each frame of this mini-opus of amour than a shelf full of ‘Titanic’s. Using a quick-witted blend of voice-over, pop jams and Super 8 signage, O’Brien stares unflinchingly at her 35-year-old mirror, wondering aloud about cruelties gathered beneath the name of love. Inspiration arrives via grandmother Alice, who found happiness when a teen sweet heart picked up a fifty-year-old promise, and Charlotte… who fell in love for the first time late in life.” – Mike Hoolboom

  • MISORDER DISORDER

    A comic short about love and illness. Shot on shimmering black-and-white stock, MISORDER DISORDER follows one man’s bizarre morning bathroom routine and his hesitant female love interest.