DEPO: AKIL HASTANESİNDE HAYAT

By following the lives of five Japanese individuals this documentary explores the problem of depression in Japan and how the marketing of anti-depressant drugs has changed the way the Japanese view depression. Marketing of anti-depressants did not begin in Japan until the late 1990s and prior to this, depression was not widely recognized as a problem by the Japanese public. Since then, use of anti-depressants has sky-rocketed and use of the Japanese word "utsu" to describe depression has become commonplace, having previously been used only by psychiatric professionals.

Marked by childhood trauma, three women from different generations living with an eating disorder try to get back to life.

A short form exploration of the very visceral and disorienting world of living with severe anxiety and depression, the world’s biggest health problem.

Bubu is a poet who has been committed to state institutions for the insane twelve times. He challenges the meaning of hospital-jails, hybrid institutions which sentence the insane to life imprisonment. The poem "The House of the Dead" was written during the filming of the documentary and reveals the forgotten deaths that occur in these judicial asylums. There are three stories in three acts of death. Jaime, Antonio, and Almerindo are anonymous men, considered dangers to society, whose punishment is the tragedy of suicide, the unending cycle of being committed to the asylum, or surviving life imprisonment in the house of the dead. Bubu is the narrator of his own life and also of his own destiny-death in the asylum.

War and Peace of Mind explores what war does to the human mind and how both, the individuals and the nation as a whole, survive it psychologically. Finland and WWII, locally known as continuation war, is the backdrop of this documentary.

A shocking exposé of the deplorable conditions and abuses from the Willowbrook State School for children with intellectual disabilities.

Based on real near-death experiences, the afterlife is explored with the guidance of New York Times bestselling authors, medical experts, scientists and survivors who shed a light on what awaits us.

Je vous écoute

Draussen bleiben

In the summer of 1971, Philip Zimbardo, Craig Haney, and Curtis Banks carried out a psychological experiment to test a simple question. What happens when you put good people in an evil place-does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? To explore this question, college student volunteers were pretested and randomly assigned to play the role of prisoner or guard in a simulated prison at Stanford University. Although the students were mentally healthy and knew they were taking part in an experiment, some guards soon because sadistic and the prisoners showed signs of acute stress and depression. After only six days, the planned two-week study spun out of control and had to be ended to prevent further abuse of the prisoners. This dramatic demonstration of the power of social situations is relevant to many institutional settings, such as the Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq.

Follows veterans and active-duty service members from varied backgrounds who come together to combat their traumas through the written word in a USO-sponsored arts workshop at Walter Reed National Military Hospital.

On a talkshow, actor and German TV ikon Joachim Fuchsberger recalls how the games for his show "Nur nicht nervös werden" (Don't Get Nervous), first broadcast on West German TV in 1960, were developed along the lines of American psychiatry. Asked "So how many crazy people watched you?", he responded: "A whole crazy, psychologically disturbed nation". Why were the Germans or to be more precise, the West Germans, a psychologically disturbed nation at that time? This is a film about cheerful and serious games, therapies for re-education and self-imposed re-education, as well as the history of the idea of permanent revolution. Those appearing include directors and producers of gameshows, psychiatrists, anthropologists, and the diversely paranoid.

Le Business du bonheur

An actual patient, Gloria Szymanski, allowed herself to be filmed while engaged in therapy with three different therapists, distinguished by their different orientations but sharing their therapeutic endeavors. Poster illustration by Kati Szilágyi.

In early times, evil spirits were thought to possess people and make them act in strange and frightening ways. By the 1800's, the study of this hysteria led some doctors to believe one person could have separately functioning personalities. In this rare research film from the 1920's, a woman has different personalities who believes they are separate people. One is a male that is not comfortable in women's clothes. Another is a small child. The affliction has been known by different names, but recognized for centuries. Today it is called multiple personality disorder. Why have they become tormented and broken into different personalities? What is the childhood pain that lies buried in the unknown depths of their mind? How can they search for the deadly memories that holds the secrets of their paths and the promise of their healing?

An unflinching documentary of those dealing with mental illness in the criminal justice system and a profile of families who tragically fell victims to that system.

This film recreates the true story of Tom Sukanen, an eccentric Finnish immigrant who homesteaded in Saskatchewan in the 1920s and 1930s. Sukanen spent ten years building and moving overland a huge iron ship that was to carry him back to his native Finland. The ship never reached water.

On the Franco-belgian border, there's a unique place that takes in children with mental and social problems. Day after day, the adults try to understand the enigma that each one of them represents and, without ever imposing anything on them, invent the solutions that will help them to live in peace, case by case. Through their stories, 'Like an Open Sky' reveals their singular vision of the world to us.

"Bedlam!" - a reconstruction of Moa Junström's summer in a closed psychiatric ward. Based on diary notes, the film mixes documentary images from inside the psyche with text messages and reconstructions of events. After being slowly broken down by a boyfriend working in the same dementia department as Moa, the situation becomes so desperate that relatives feel compelled to contact inpatient care.

Jonas Elrod woke up one day with the ability to see and hear angels, demons and ghosts. Filmed over the course of three years, this documentary follows Jonas and his girlfriend as they try to understand the phenomenon.