Documentary Land of Not Knowing will be one of the films featured when the Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival lands in Winnipeg on Aug. 11.
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This article was published 10/8/2017 (554 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
As a subject, madness has been a tantalizing draw for filmmakers going back to Robert Weine’s 1920 expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But it reached a kind of pinnacle in the 1960s and ’70s, when many of the great directors broached the topic, says Toronto film critic Geoff Pevere.
“So many of the people that we once referred to as the greatest directors, whether it’s Bergman, or Bunuel or Antonioni, Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, what all of these filmmakers explored through varying extents were the subjective experience of insanity,” Pevere says.
“The connection between film and mental illness always made sense for me.”
That explains how Pevere, 59, happened to become the programmer for the Toronto-based Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival three years ago from departing program director Lisa Brown.
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Hey there, time traveller! This article was published 10/8/2017 (554 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
As a subject, madness has been a tantalizing draw for filmmakers going back to Robert Weine’s 1920 expressionist classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. But it reached a kind of pinnacle in the 1960s and ’70s, when many of the great directors broached the topic, says Toronto film critic Geoff Pevere.
"So many of the people that we once referred to as the greatest directors, whether it’s Bergman, or Bunuel or Antonioni, Orson Welles, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Robert Altman, Roman Polanski, what all of these filmmakers explored through varying extents were the subjective experience of insanity," Pevere says.
"The connection between film and mental illness always made sense for me."
That explains how Pevere, 59, happened to become the programmer for the Toronto-based Rendezvous with Madness Film Festival three years ago from departing program director Lisa Brown.
"Back when it started in ’92, nobody was doing it and the concept behind it was that every film should be a prelude to a discussion," Pevere says on the phone from Toronto.
"We wanted to share the chance to use these films as an opportunity for discussion."
SUPPLIED
Juanicas screens Aug. 12 at 3 p.m. at Cinematheque.
In its 25th year, the festival hits the road for a cross-country tour that touches down in Winnipeg this weekend at Cinematheque, a good fit for Pevere, a Toronto critic who was an early champion of the Winnipeg Film Group back in the late 1980s.
Pevere, who believes a film can be an opportunity for people to speak out about things, will be in attendance to screen three features and three short films and lead a discussion to follow.
"I never though that I would program a film festival, but this is one that feels like a good fit for me," he says, adding that the marriage of madness and cinema has tended to be a fruitful union.
"It first hit home that this could be a productive and creative way to deal with the subject matter when I first saw (Martin Scorsese’s) Taxi Driver," he says.
"I realized that I was made to be both hypnotized by what I was looking at and made uncomfortable by it," he recalls. "And as the film played on, it’s constantly playing with how reliable (Robert De Niro’s troubled protagonist Travis Bickle) is, when we begin to realize Travis is capable of anything. By the time we realize that, the movie has arranged itself inside his head and you can’t get out of it."
That was one of the moments when Pevere really said: "Wow."
"Going back to Roman Polanski’s Repulsion, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, Antonioni’s Red Desert, it’s amazing how many of the art films in that era deal with that subject matter, and how much of this style is engaged in the process of trying to replicate the experience of the disordered mind."
Pevere adds that contemporary films on the subject offer a wide range of topics within the larger subject.
"Sometimes they’re about the legal ramifications, or exposés about how different cultures around the world treat people in institutions. Sometimes it’s in the form of documentary, sometimes feature, sometimes animation, sometimes experimental.
"We are looking at a very, very rich vein of film activity around the world," Pevere says.
"To me it makes complete sense. But then, I probably have my own issues."
randall.king@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter: @FreepKing
Randall King Reporter
In a way, Randall King was born into the entertainment beat.
Films at the Rendezvous with Madness Festival include:
Swift Current (Friday, Aug. 11 at 7 p.m.)
This 2016 documentary by Joshua Rofé focuses on the journey of hockey star Sheldon Kennedy, whose past as the victim of sexual abuse by a coach led him to a painful journey that ultimately saw him take a role as spokesperson for others who survived that ordeal. It plays with Psychedelic Soldiers, a 15 minute short doc about two veterans contending with post-traumatic stress disorder with a controversial alternative treatment.
Juanicas (Saturday, Aug. 12 at 3 p.m.)
This feature doc by Karina Garcia Casanova examines Casanova's own difficult home life in Montreal being raised by a bipolar mother whose condition has been passed on to Karina's brother Juan. It plays with A Celebration of Darkness, director Jaene F.Castrillon's six-minute short in which an adult woman strives to confront the struggles of her younger self.
Land of Not Knowing (Sunday, Aug. 13 at 3 p.m.)
Director Steve Sanguedolce's experimental documentary focuses on four artists discussing the impulse to suicide, and how it has resonated in their lives and their art. It plays with Scrapbook, director Mike Hoolboom's fresh look at Toronto filmmaker's Jeffrey Paull 50-year-old footage of children and teenagers in a so-called ‘development center’ in Ohio.
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