Tarnation

Filmmaker Jonathan Caouette's documentary on growing up with his schizophrenic mother -- a mixture of snapshots, Super-8, answering machine messages, video diaries, early short films, and more -- culled from 19 years of his life.

2003-10-19 | en

The Blood Is at the Doorstep

After Dontre Hamilton, a black, unarmed man diagnosed with schizophrenia, was shot 14 times and killed by police in Milwaukee, his family embarks on a quest for answers, justice and reform as the investigation unfolds.

2017-03-13 | en

This Beggar's Description

It's a sensitive, moving doc chronicling the life of Tétrault's brother Philip , a Montreal poet, musician and diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. A promising athlete as a child, Philip began experiencing mood swings in his early 20s. His extended family, including his daughter, share their conflicted feelings love, guilt, shame, anger with the camera. They want to make sure he's safe, but how much can they take?

2006-07-19 | en

A Brilliant Madness

The life of the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician and schizophrenic John Nash — the inspiration for the feature film A Beautiful Mind — is a powerful exploration of how genius and madness can become intertwined.

2002-05-28 | en

They Heard Voices

THEY HEARD VOICES is a documentary film exploring the Hearing Voices Movement, chronic psychosis, and the schizophrenia label. The film is a series of wide-ranging interviews with voice hearers, medical historians, anthropologists and psychiatrists from Britain and America, presenting different people’s views. Is schizophrenia hard science or an arbitrary, catch-all term with no real meaning? What does it mean for those experiencing psychosis?

2016-12-14 | en

Beware the Slenderman

In this horrifyingly modern fairytale lurks an online Boogeyman and two 12-year-old girls who would kill for him. The entrance to the internet quickly leads to its darkest basement. How responsible are our children for what they find there?

2016-03-11 | en

Children of Darkness

A significant number of American children and teenagers - from all social backgrounds - suffer from mental disorders, schizophrenia, autism and emotional problems, leading them to isolation from society while treating their issues in mental health facilities. But there's no end in sight for those young individuals when they face obstacles and mistreatment in inadequate places under the supervision of careless and inexperienced professionals. The documentary follows some of those public mental institutions and another private center dealing with troubled kids and reveals what's wrong with their procedures, and the irreparable harm they cause in those patients.

1983-01-01 | en

Symptoms in Schizophrenia

Shows masked mental patients enacting various schizophrenic symptoms as they were understood at the time. A disturbing film that raises questions about the condition and treatment of its subjects. (archive.org) “Abstract: This film describes and demonstrates four types of schizophrenia. Filmed at various New York institutions, it shows patients singly and grouped in large, outside recreational areas. Some patients are blindfolded. Symptoms shown include: social apathy, delusions, hallucinations, hebephrenic reactions, cerea flexibilitas, rigidity, motor stereotypes, posturing, and echopraxia.” (Guide to Mental Health Motion Pictures)

1938-01-01 | en

The Sunnyboy

Following the Sunnyboys’ enigmatic frontman Jeremy Oxley from the band’s origins, breakthrough success and his subsequent 30-year battle with schizophrenia, The Sunnyboy is one man's inspired story of survival and hope. A meditation on a condition often stigmatised and misunderstood, Kaye Harrison’s documentary buries below the surface of Oxley’s public “identity” to explore his own reality and battle to maintain “self”. Secure in a loving relationship with his partner Mary, Oxley slowly emerges from his solitary torment to join the world we all share. The film follows him as he tentatively unpicks his confused thoughts and feelings about the past with his brother Peter. From his struggle with the physical effects of years spent self-medicating to his hopeful contemplation of a married future and a daring return to the stage, The Sunnyboy is the definitive documentary of Jeremy Oxley's journey from the Sunnyboys and back.

2013-06-02 | en

That Way Madness Lies...

One woman and her family trek the broken mental health system in an effort to save her brother as he descends into madness. Beginning as a testimony of his sanity, his iPhone video diary ultimately becomes an unfiltered look at the mind of an untreated schizophrenic.

2017-05-11 | en

Wake Up

Jonas Elrod woke up one day with the ability to see and hear angels, demons and ghosts. Filmed over the course of three years, this documentary follows Jonas and his girlfriend as they try to understand the phenomenon.

2010-09-14 | en

Tanjuska and the 7 Devils

A documentary about Tanjuska who is a 12-year-old White-Russian schoolgirl, with a face like an icon. Two years ago she stopped eating, then talking and finally she stopped growing. The village priest in Estonia has explained to the family that seven devils have made a home inside Tanjuska. These devils are giving her orders and only a daily ceremony can force the devils to leave the girl.

1993-03-12 | fi

Otázky pana Lásky

2013-03-14 | cs

Executing the Insane: The Case of Scott Panetti

Scott Panetti was tried for the capital murder of his parents-in-law on September 8, 1992 in Gillespie County, Texas. He was subsequently sentenced to death on September 22, 1995. Panetti has an extensive history of mental illness, including schizophrenia, manic depression, auditory hallucinations and paranoia. Panetti was hospitalized, both voluntarily and involuntarily for mental illness fourteen times in six different hospitals before his arrest for capital murder in 1992. Following his conviction, Panetti’s former wife, and daughter of the victims, Sonja Alvarado, filed a petition stating that Panetti never should have been tried for the crimes as he was suffering from paranoid delusions at the time of the killings.

2007-01-01 | en

Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse

Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse is a feature length documentary film about one mans struggle with schizophrenia and the extraordinary brutality that ended his life. It is the story of a city in denial that was forced to face the truth and learn, grow and change as a result. Alien Boy explores issues of impunity, police brutality, and mental illness.

2013-02-15 | en

Born Schizophrenic: Jani & Bodhi's Journey

Jani, now 11, is showing improvement in keeping her hallucinations at bay. But the same cannot be said for Bodhi, now 6. His dangerous outbursts have landed him in the hospital; leaving the doctors and family with a puzzling diagnosis.

2014-05-25 | en

Billy

Billy is a film buff who films himself non-stop. During a film shoot, he meets Lawrence Côté-Collins and the two become friends. One night, he assaults her. Years later, in prison for the deaths of two people, Billy is diagnosed with schizophrenia. With the help of the filmmaker, his only remaining relationship apart from his family, his personal archives become an invaluable resource for understanding his illness. A formal deconstruction of schizophrenia through a remarkably open-minded gaze.

2024-04-17 | fr

Painting with 14 Personalities

British artist Kim Noble talks about the reality of living with dissociative identity disorder and shows us the artwork created by 14 of her personalities. "I'm Patricia, I don't like being called Kim, but I have got used to it now."

2012-03-20 | en

Born Schizophrenic: January's Story

The story of the Schofield family, whose daughter January was diagnosed as schizophrenic at five-years old, making her one of only two children to ever receive that diagnosis.

2011-05-24 | en

Loulou

Nathan was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Now he's better, before he was much worse. He films himself, his relatives at the hospital, his bipolar best friend, his father, his sister, his mother and his love between 2011 and 2018. For him, everyone is a "loulou", in his own way. It is thanks to them that he finally begins to become a man instead of a madman.

2020-05-28 | fr