Mini: A Life Revisited

Unit of Difficult Patients: What Future for the Criminally Insane?

2017

With unique and exclusive testimonies from doctors, nurses, loved ones, and patients we go behind closed doors to examine a high security psychiatric facility that takes care of some of the most dangerous patients.

Children of Darkness

1983

A significant number of American children and teenagers - from all social backgrounds - suffer from mental disorders, schizophrenia, autism and emotional problems, leading them to isolation from society while treating their issues in mental health facilities. But there's no end in sight for those young individuals when they face obstacles and mistreatment in inadequate places under the supervision of careless and inexperienced professionals. The documentary follows some of those public mental institutions and another private center dealing with troubled kids and reveals what's wrong with their procedures, and the irreparable harm they cause in those patients.

Le chemin brut de Lisette et Romain

1995

Face to Face: The Schappell Twins

1999

Two bodies and one mind, this is the extraordinary story of one pair of conjoined twins in today's world.

Lima Barreto: Trajetória

1966

Short film about the life and career of the notorious Brazilian writer Lima Barreto.

Days of Madness

2018

Days of Madness portray an incredible odyssey of two mentally diverse and unjustly rejected people who are learning to accept it, faced with the blindness of the society and the health system that made them addicts.

The House of the Dead

2009

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.

Library of Dust

2011

In 2004 the Oregon State Hospital, former site of the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, revealed the existence of thousands of corroded copper urns, each containing cremated human remains. Photographer David Maisel captured these beautifully unique urns of forgotten souls on film. Exhibiting their photos revealed secrets, influenced political decisions and reunited families. This film will show how art can stimulate social change and will document the ongoing controversy surrounding a proper memorial for these institutionalized casualties.

Forbidden: Dead Harbor

1976

‘Dead Harbor’ deals with the people who were living in worst asylums at that time – institutions in which the society was throwing a way all those who they wanted to get rid off and marginalize: psychiatric patients, alcoholics, old people who no one wanted, ex prostitutes and the other social cases. Work was filmed in Asylum for adults in Bidružica. Without any real care or therapy, under hard sedatives and drugs, inhabitants of Asylum wasted their days without any meaningful activities – walking in circles in the yard, sitting on the benches or in the best case drinking in local pubs.

Asylum: A History of the Mental Institution in America

1989

The complex and controversial history of the mental institution in the U.S. through a detailed study of St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Anyplace But Here

1978

A documentary part of CBS reports. The plight of mental patients fit for discharge, but who find themselves thrust into communities unprepared to treat or accept them is the focus of this documentary narrated by Bill Moyers. The dilemma of being as scared of getting well as of remaining ill and facing a world with no home or job to go to is vividly portrayed as the film follows three patients as they move into rare transition programs.

Rolanda Polonsky, Sculptor

1971

Enter the imaginative world of acclaimed sculptor Rolanda Polonsky, who had been a resident of Netherne Psychiatric Hospital in Coulsdon, Surrey for 26 years when this film was made. One of the positive aspects of her illness, described in the film as a schizophrenia, is that it "tapped a deep source of mystical vision and human feeling" which finds expression in her work.

Nice Dreams

1981

Nice Dreams - it rhymes with ice creams. And that's what Cheech and Chong are selling in this thoroughly wacky comedy. The outrageous, permanently spaced-out duo sells enough of their "specially mixed" ice cream to take the cash and realize their fondest dreams: new guitars, islands in the sun and beautiful women. But, of course, not everything goes as planned. While celebrating their wealth in a new wave Chinese restaurant, Cheech meets his long-lost love Donna, and promptly escorts her to her posh penthouse. He soon learns, however, that Donna's boyfriend, an ex-con named Animal, is on his way to her boudoir. Meanwhile, Chong has unwittingly exchanged all their money for a worthless bank check - and the only way to get it back is to escape into a nearby insane asylum.

Krazzy 4

2008

4 mental patients formulate the plan to rescue their kidnapped doctor and teach the kidnappers a lesson.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

1991

Set ten years after the events of the original, James Cameron’s classic sci-fi action flick tells the story of a second attempt to get rid of rebellion leader John Connor, this time targeting the boy himself. However, the rebellion has sent a reprogrammed terminator to protect Connor.