Last week I went to see two films on general release about people with mental health problems and the role of creativity in their lives. They happened to be by film directors whose past work included two of my favourite films. In other ways they were quite different.
Typist Artist Pirate King (this year’s best title?) is directed and written by Carole Morley based on research funded by the Wellcome Trust and BFI. Her first well known film was the extraordinary Dreams of a Life which imagined the life of Joyce Carol Vincent who was tragically found in her flat three years after she died alone. Her new film focuses on the life of artist Audrey Amiss, who experienced mental health problems throughout her adult life. (She wants to make clear that she is not an ‘Outsider Artist’ but trained at the Royal Academy.) Monica Dolan is superb in the role and I understand that the family of Audrey Amiss have been very appreciative. Your view on it might depend on how you like the imagined road trip with a psychiatric nurse (a cipher of a role) and the tragi-comic tone that the film strikes.
By contrast On the Adamant is a documentary by Nicholas Philibert who is best known for his 2002 documentary Être et Avoir about a rural French primary school. The Adamant day centre is a boat moored on the Seine in Paris and runs creative activities for people with mental health problems. There is something very similar in London called Cathja. The pace is slow and gentle. Of course, all films are the result of a huge amount of editing, but this certainly gives the impression that it is giving participants their voice and allowing them a lot of space. The rhythm of the film is around making jam, or writing poetry, or playing the guitar or dancing.
This all led me to thinking about what is happening in the UK about film and people living with mental health problems, and its relevance to our programme.
There is an enormous issue regarding the portrayal of mental health problems in films generally, which has been, to use the understatement of the century, generally unhelpful. One of the few portrayals that is remotely positive is in Silver Linings Playbook. This is all explored in much more depth in a recent book, if you are willing to overlook the sensationalist title (I don’t really know why you should). Doubtless, as in other areas of acting, there will be discussions about the lived experience of actors playing these roles. Some actors have wanted to talk about their experiences as a way of reducing stigma and challenging services. David Harewood, for instance.
In terms of our own funding, the most obvious example is the use of ‘therapeutic storytelling film’ by the long established esc films in Belfast. You can see a wealth of examples here and can learn more about their work at a webinar at 12 noon on 5th December.
The annual Scottish Mental Health and Arts Festival (which we are supporting) has been running since 2007. It is led by the Mental Health Foundation Scotland and has hundreds of events that attract around 25,000 people. It may be the largest such festival in the world. For many years it has had a major dedicated Film Festival. Here are some of its past winners. Look out for its next edition in 2024.
So, work seems a little thin on the ground. Doubtless I have missed a great deal. There are major initiatives by cinemas in adjacent fields. Many cinemas will now have regular dementia friendly screenings. MediCinema is a very interesting initiative which seems to have mostly been about creating cinemas in major general hospitals (some of which might include psychiatric wards) and not yet expanded to any specialist psychiatric hospitals.
Typist Artist Pirate King and On the Adamant are welcome additions to film making about mental health but appear quite lonely examples in an area that is ripe for development.