"Mental Illness on Trial," the latest mental health documentary produced by the Treatment Advocacy Center, will premiere March 19 as an official selection of the Socially Relevant Film Festival in New York City.
"What we set out to do was frame the story of how mental illness became criminalized in America and punctuate it with a personal story,” says Dr. Gary Tsai, a member of the Treatment Advocacy Center’s Psychiatric Advisory Board and co-director of the documentary. “The result was powerful, and we're grateful that the Socially Relevant Film Festival will bring it to a larger audience."
The mission of the Socially Relevant Film Fest is to “shine the spotlight on filmmakers who tell compelling, socially relevant, human interest narratives across a broad range of social issues without resorting to gratuitous violence and violent forms of movie making.”
“Most films today encourage misrepresentation, reinforce stereotypes and create an escapist passive attitude towards major social issues,” says Nora Armani, founding artistic director of the festival. “By simply focusing on socially relevant themes, positive social change can be promoted through the powerful medium of cinema.”
The video features former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, retired Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Stratton and psychiatrists Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., and Sally Satel, M.D., describing the forces that produced today's grim mental health landscape, where half a million people with untreated serious psychiatric disease live on the streets or behind bars. Woven throughout is the personal journey of co-director Doris A. Fuller’s family.
Tickets may be purchased online at the Socially Relevant Film Festival website..
Full release of the documentary will follow later in 2015. Click here to watch the one-minute trailer.