After losing an uncle and two friends to suicide, Zen Buddhist Ittetsu Nemoto made it his life’s work to support individuals struggling with depression and suicidal ideation. Despite cultural taboos from a temple in the high mountains of central Japan, Ittetsu Nemoto takes a community-focused, holistic approach to healing trauma. My Soul Drifts Light Upon a Sea of Trees inscribes the journey and mission of Nemoto as he helps three people find life after limbo. As each person candidly reveals their story of what the edge of life felt like, a therapeutic effect transfixes the audience. With this remarkable film, a quiet plea for a radical shift in the way we think about suicide is heard.

Screening with

Ancestral Mindscapes
Rick Miller | 2019 | Canada | 15 mins | World Premiere

From the traditional territories of the Micmac Nation of Gespeg to the small town of Gaspé, Québec, director Rick Miller reveals to the audience his family’s lineage and how it has defined and illuminated his relationship with mental health.

My Soul Drifts with Ittetsu Nemoto

Join us for a discussion with the subject of My Soul Drifts Light Upon a Sea of Trees. Internationally known Buddhist priest Ittetsu Nemoto will be joining us via Skype to talk about his life’s mission to provide space and time for those who live with depression. 

Group therapy sessions. Community meals. Heartfelt conversations. This life is foreign to Margot (Julie Moulier), a thirty something woman from a wealthy French family. Margot lives with addiction and she’s just enrolled in a rehab facility in a remote French countryside. It’s quaint and dreamlike in the country which is the complete opposite of Margot’s fevered mental state. Her repressed feelings make Margot reluctant to open up to strangers. She doesn’t believe in the community approach to recovery. What might happen if she actually let go of her fears and allowed others in?  Margot’s character offers audiences an intimate examination of the deep-rooted psychological causes of addiction. Our Wonderful Lives gives us a nuanced and refreshing look into community based recovery and the significance of something as simple as friendship.

(En Français)

GENRE: FICTION

SUJET: TOXICOMANIE, COMMUNAUTÉ, AMITIÉ, THÉRAPIE DE GROUPE, RÉADAPTATION

TYPE: FILM

Séances de thérapie de groupe. Repas communautaires. Conversations sincères. Cette vie est étrangère à Margot (Julie Moulier), une femme d’une trentaine d’années issue d’une famille bourgeoise française. Margot est toxicomane et elle vient de s’inscrire dans un centre de réadaptation situé dans une campagne française isolée. La vie y est douce et onirique, tout à l’inverse de la fièvre mentale de Margot. Ses sentiments refoulés empêchent Margot de s’ouvrir aux autres patients. Elle ne croit pas à la réadaptation à base communautaire. Que pourrait-il arriver si elle abandonnait ses peurs et s’ouvrait à autrui? Le personnage de Margot offre au public un examen intime des causes psychologiques profondes de la dépendance. Nos Vies formidables nous donne un regard nuancé et rafraîchissant sur la réadaptation à base communautaire et la signification de quelque chose d’aussi simple que l’amitié.

Irene’s Ghost is a stunning 6-years-in-the-making documentary that follows a son’s search to find out about the mother he never knew. Cunningham breaks the silence and tracks down his mother’s friends and family to rebuild a picture of her. Cunningham was three when his Mother Irene died. His Father never spoke of it and the family’s silence around Irene meant that she was alive only in Cunningham’s imagination as a thistle seed or in the image of the moon. The birth of his own child inspires a journey to discover the truth about Irene, piecing together fragments of the past to make sense of the present. Utilizing gorgeous animation alongside moving archival footage, Irene’s Ghost lovingly rebuilds Irene’s lost life.

Screening with

Uncle Thomas: Accounting for the Days
Regina Pessoa | 2019 | Canada | 13 mins | Toronto Premiere

Regina Pessoa’s latest animation beautifully illustrates her childhood memories of her charming and idiosyncratic uncle. This film is a testament of Pessoa’s love and admiration for her uncle’s unique spirit.

Motherhood

How does talking about (or not talking about) post-partum depression and post-partum psychosis impact women and families? After the screening of Irene’s Ghost, we will explore the complicated layers of how post-partum disorders are understood and felt personally as well as culturally through first hand experiences from women and professionals in discussion with the filmmaker.

Haunted by the death of his sister Merle, psychiatrist Kenneth Paul Rosenberg takes on the role of documentary filmmaker to examine a national health crisis in the US. Bedlam follows personal stories of people living with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other chronic mental health issues with a television-style precision. Bedlam describes the deinstitutionalization triggers pulled in the mid- and late 20th century (which occurred in Canada as well) to create this ‘bedlam’ on an inter/national scale. Created over the course of five years, Bedlam takes us inside Los Angeles County’s overwhelmed and vastly under-resourced psychiatric ER; a nearby jail warehousing thousands of patients; and people suffering from severe mental health issues in their homes and homeless encampments, where silence and shame often worsen the suffering.

Screening with

Talking at Night
Eric Thiessen | 2017 | Canada | 6 mins

Director Eric Thiessen captures behind-the-scenes experiences of Saskatoon’s Mobile Crisis Centre staff as they provide 24/7 crisis resolution to people in distress.

De-institutionalization On Both Sides Of The Border

How has de-institutionalization shaped Toronto? Have we fared any better in the practice of de-institutionalization than our US counterparts? The history of de-institutionalization in our city has led to the Mad Pride movement, shaped the neighbourhood of Parkdale (and others in the GTA) and continues to alter hospital emergency rooms, shelter systems and community-based harm reduction centres. In witnessing how the United States systems have been affected in the documentary Bedlam, we will use this film as a counterpoint to reflect on where we have been and where we are going here at home.

Intangible Adorations is an immersive theatrical experience that explores the impact of celebrity worship on the mental health of the famous, and on those who become infatuated with celebrity. Audience members will gather in the Hall of Celebrity, have the opportunity to learn the best way to approach someone famous, and then experience an iconic piece of performance art in the Red Chapel enacted by a celebrity whose identity is concealed by a morph suit. Will they reveal their identity, or will they choose to remain anonymous? That will be up to the individual who represents the ICON each night. Who in the audience will have the courage to participate in a celebrity panel where they’ll get a taste of what it feels like to be famous?

Creators: Lisa Anita Wegner and Scott White
Lighting Design and Effects: Carl Elster
Original Music: Pink Moth
Co-producers: Haus of Dada, Workman Arts, KC Cooper and Meek
Performers: KC Cooper, Emily Gillespie, Amy Loucareas, Meek, Jane Smythe and Lisa Anita Wegner

The creators would like to acknowledge the OAC for Exhibition Assistance for Intangible Adorations: The Icon Experience.

Celebrity and Anonymity: An Artist Talk and Q&A

A discussion of Intangible Adorations with creator and performer Lisa Anita Wegner and collaborator Scott White on Saturday, October 19 after the 2:00 pm show, moderated by Lisa McKeown. The discussion will touch on the nature of modern celebrity culture, celebrity worship syndrome and the origins of this version of Intangible Adorations. The panel will also discuss the significance of Lisa’s journey with mental and physical health, the relevance of finding anonymous expression, and how this piece fits into Lisa’s larger universe of therapeutic performance and film work.

Charlie is looking for happy, Remi is a struggling musician and bartender who has clinical depression, Jinx is a burlesque performer and PHD candidate who works at The Orange Balloon, and Minka, no one knows what Minka does. In This House is a play about four young adults living together in Toronto. It is a look into the epidemic of loneliness and depression among the Millennial generation and the daily struggle to make something of yourself in this city. In This House is a play about a generation, a city and an exact time in our lives. This is a play about how we save each other.

Written and Directed by Grace Thompson
Performed by: Astrid Atherly, Jonathan Sconza, Rosie Callaghan and Ciana Henderson
Stage Manager: Erin Maxfield
Set and Lighting Design: Lisa Van Oorschot
Sound Design: Shannon Farrell

Millennial Mental Health: a two-part conversation 

How are young people today talking about suicide? How are Millennials navigating their experiences with mental health and addictions? Join the cast of In this House after the shows on October 12 and October 15 as they discuss the production themes and their experiences navigating between being emerging artists, living on their own for the first time and managing their mental health. This two-part conversation will explore the unique difficulties for young people in Canada, and the communities of support being created as a response.

PSYCHOSIS is inspired by the investigation of Ronald’s mental health episode in Canada and pulls into the present to explore an awareness of adversity, reconciliation and resilience. By connecting relationships between disability, environment and the human spirit, PSYCHOSIS seeks to explore the trauma and ongoing challenges of mental health, while dealing with bouts of darkness, depression and the human psyche.

Choreographer: Ronald Taylor
Performers: Michael Mortley, Kelly La Juenesse, Anthony ‘Prime’ Guerra and Emilie Jabouin

PSYCHOSIS Process

After the show on October 12, join the cast members to discuss the intricacies of creating and performing Ronald Taylor’s PSYCHOSIS. Through an inter-sectional lens, performers and audience members will have the chance to further reflect together on the performance and the insight that it provides.

In 1964, at the age of 28, a queer dancer named Fred Herko jetéd out the window of his ex-lover’s apartment – naked, and high on speed. The Life and Death of Fred Herko is an interdisciplinary, site-specific performance that sheds light on a footnoted figure in queer history and examines the collateral damage of art.

Through striking sound design, movement and text the piece reimagines the dancer’s infamous last moments and seeks to find utopian potential in his tragic story.

The research and development of this piece has been generously supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Suggested Dress Code: Party Glam

Director: Claire Burns
Writer: Natalie Liconti
Sound Design: Devon Bate
Lighting Design: Darah Miah
Production Management: Taylor Young
Set and Installation Design: James Knott
Stage Management: Kit Simmons
Irma Villafuerte: Choreographer
Performers: Oliver Price, Daniel Carter, Andrew Cheng and Sochi Fried
Special Thanks to Brian Quirt

Bianca Mercer is one of many women affected by Canada’s ineffective prison system. With more resources being invested into prisons than communities, women have become the highest growing prison population in the world.

In Conviction, a team of documentary filmmakers gain access to a female correctional facility in Nova Scotia to tackle the crisis from within. Instead of simply conducting interviews, the filmmakers collaborate with Bianca and other women in the facility to create a deeply personal and prisoner’s-eye documentary. Utilizing cameras, spoken word poetry and art supplies, the women share their experiences with institutionalization and unapologetically address the ineptitude of incarceration. What can we do to prevent women from being imprisoned in the first place and stop systemic re-institutionalization? Working alongside the Elizabeth Fry Society and the filmmakers, the women envision a better alternative to a failing criminal justice system to build communities; not cages.

Pre-film reception starts at 5:00 pm and includes food, beverage, art and film program.

Women Incarcerated  

Join us for our first panel discussion, which will include Conviction’s filmmaker Ariella Pahlke, subject Tanya Bignell, guests with lived experience of incarceration, Canadian Senator Kim Pate, and representatives from the Elizabeth Fry Society. Moderated by Orev Reena Katz, a Mental Health Correctional Chaplain, they will discuss the various realities and difficulties for women living with mental health issues within a correctional facility. Why are women the fastest growing segment of the prison system in Canada? How do we support, encourage and make space for the growth of women on the inside?