Since its inception in 1993, the Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival has delivered on its complex mandate: presenting cultural representations of mental illness and addiction and then contextualizing them through post-screening discussions. This year’s lineup might be the festival’s most stacked yet, with screenings on a range of issues and in a variety of genres.
The festival kicks off at TIFF Bell Lightbox with a gala presentation of Destin Cretton’s acclaimed Short Term 12 (November 11, 7 p.m.), a feature-length adaptation of his Sundance prize-winning short of the same title. The film, making its Toronto premiere, has been earning raves at festivals like Locarno and SXSW, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. Critics have been especially high on Brie Larson’s star-making performance as Grace, a shift supervisor in a foster-care facility for at-risk teens. We weren’t as taken with the film as some (a number of its plot developments, especially the ones pertaining to Grace’s increasingly convoluted backstory as a troubled youth herself, are cloying). Larson, though, is terrific. The film will serve as fodder for a post-screening conversation, hosted by psychiatrist David Goldbloom, about the value or limitations of such institutions.
Short Term 12‘s high-profile status might well be the result of a recent spate of cultural representations of youth with mental health issues. This mental health boom will be the subject of a symposium on Saturday morning (November 16, 10 a.m.). Moderated by Globe and Mail columnist Geoff Pevere, the symposium will open with a keynote address by M. Korenblum, chief psychiatrist at the Hincks-Dellcrest Centre for Children and Families. Korenblum will speak on his experience as a pediatric psychiatrist, before turning things over to a couple of relevant films. The first is a repertory screening of Allan King’s 1967 documentary Warrendale, which is as gripping now as it was then. The film is a cinéma vérité portrait of an experimental facility in Toronto, where patients were invited to physically release their anger in so-called holding sessions while being restrained by caregivers. Nuria Ibanez’s The Naked Room is a logical follow-up insofar as it’s also a direct look at an institutional space, this time the office of a pediatric psychiatrist in Mexico City over the course of a number of sessions. After the screenings, Pevere will host a discussion with Korenblum and a panel of other experts.
A still from Warrendale.
As informative as these panels and symposia are likely to be, those seeking lighter fare might wish to take in Thursday’s programme of Canadian short films (November 14, 9:15 p.m.). Although the tones and approaches to mental health vary greatly across the programme, each title is interested in evoking the psychological experience of its characters. The highest-profile offering here may be Subconscious Password, an NFB-produced animated short from Chris Landreth, who won an Academy Award for his 2004 documentary, Ryan. This comic look at issues of memory loss and attention is structured as a 1960s game show, with celebrity guests like James Joyce and William S. Burroughs.
Subconcious Password is a technical marvel if nothing else, but we were just as impressed by more modest titles like John Alden Milne’s lovely confection Dancing Is Meaningless, which won the audience award at Cinefest. Set at a high-school formal, the film follows neurotic misanthrope Stanley as he observes his schoolmates’ dance moves with a mixture of curiosity and disdain, making mordant commentary (by screenwriter Anne Boulton) on the dancers’ likely knee damage, among other things. The shorts programme will be followed by a panel discussion with each of the filmmakers, moderated by NOW Magazine’s senior film writer Norm Wilner.
In addition to its film offerings, the festival will also host a conversation with Kids in the Hall’s infamous Scott Thompson, who can currently be seen in the Toronto-shot NBC series Hannibal. Thompson will join TBS host and stand-up comic Paul Gilmartin for a wide-ranging discussion about his career and his lifelong issues with depression and addiction.