Mad Dance: A Mental Health Film Trilogy

Monday, August 4th 2014 at 7.00pm

Film Screening as well as Artist Talk and Q&A with Ken Paul Rosenthal

Mad Dance is a trilogy of provocative and beautiful short films that re-envision the way we think, speak and feel about mental distress and wellness in today’s chaotic world. These transformative films offer new maps for navigating madness with insight, healing and hope.

Still from For Shadows

For Shadows  (2013, Color, Regular 8 to Video, Sound, 26 minutes)  
A contemplative, multi-layered memoir that explores the process of coming to terms with one’s shadow while unraveling the tangled roots of self-harm. The home movies of a child’s formative years and an interior landscape of traumatic domestic memories are excavated and re-constructed alongside  sound clips from archival mental hygiene films.

In Light, In!  (2013, B/W, 16mm Found Footage to Video, Sound, 12 minutes)  
A haunting, visual essay about the awkward and angry junctures where our culture struggles to manage its emotional distress. Images recycled from 1950’s-era educational films are accompanied by original compositions by cellist, Zoe Keating.

Crooked Beauty  (2011, B/W, Color, Super 8 to Video, Sound, 32 minutes)  
A poetic documentary that chronicles artist-activist Jacks McNamara’s courageous journey from psych ward inpatient to pioneering mental health advocacy. Poignant testimonials connect the fissures and fault lines of human nature to the unstable topography and mercurial weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ken Paul Rosenthal is an independent filmmaker, educator and activist. His films are visually sensual, emotionally intelligent works of art that also function as tools for personal and societal transformation. The Mad Dance Trilogy has collectively won seventeen awards, screened in forty-seven film festivals, and been presented at dozens of peer support networks, universities, mental health symposia and community events worldwide.

www.kenpaulrosenthal.com
www.maddancementalhealthfilmtrilogy.com