culture
Rendezvous With Madness Turns 22
The largest film festival devoted to mental health issues spotlights substance abuse in sports.
Still from Stray Dog.
Rendezvous With Madness
TIFF Bell Lightbox (350 King Street West)
November 10–15, 2014
Regular programs $12, Festival Pass $70
Now entering its 22nd season, Rendezvous With Madness is both the longest-running mental health–focused film festival of its kind and the largest. As per the festival’s mandate to exhibit conversation-inspiring work about mental health and addiction that might not otherwise get such exposure, the slate ranges from documentaries and alternative independent film offerings, to a closing-day symposium on the connection between mental health and substance abuse in sports.
Though this year’s edition lacks the star power of last year’s buzzed-about Brie Larson showcase Short Term 12, it does offer Stray Dog, the new film from Debra Granik, the Winter’s Bone director who more or less kickstarted Jennifer Lawrence’s career. This time, the American independent filmmaker casts her observational eye on a Vietnam War veteran dealing with trauma while caring for his four small dogs. Those seeking a documentary closer to the festival’s theme of mental health issues in sport would do well to take in No No: A Dockumentary. Well-reviewed out of Sundance, the doc looks at former Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis, focusing on his social-justice activism as well as his more recent work as an addictions counsellor.
Among the fiction offerings, the starriest is probably Gabriel, which continues Rory Culkin’s remarkably consistent run of playing characters who can be described as Holden Caulfield–esque. Lou Howe’s film, decently received in its debut at Tribeca, profiles a young man (Culkin) on a short leave from a mental health hospital and on an ill-fated search for his first love. (That makes it similar in detail to Josh and Ben Safdie’s bracing Heaven Knows What, a hit at TIFF and a curious omission here, given its focus on mental health and addiction.) We’re also curious about Anja Marquardt’s She’s Lost Control, which received some good notices out of SXSW earlier this year. The film is about a sex surrogate in New York whose newest client challenges her sense of the line between the personal and professional.
Owing a lot to the stronger firepower of behemoths such as TIFF—which pull a lot of the premieres smaller festivals like Rendezvous With Madness would surely love to have—some of the most surprising programming here can usually be found in the shorts. We’re especially interested in The Auroratone Project, a collection of original shorts by experimental Canadian filmmakers from around the country and scored to artists from POP Montreal’s 2012 roster. The shorts aim to follow in the tradition of their namesakes, aurororatones being abstract musical films used in the mid-20th century as a means to treat sufferers of PTSD following the Second World War. We haven’t seen the programme, but if we were to start anywhere, it’d be here.