In the past 40 years Iraq has endured three major wars, a violent coup, two invasions, a decade of bombing, two insurgencies, attack by the so-called Islamic State group, and a sectarian civil war. Living through such relentless bloodshed has taken a heavy toll on the nation’s mental health. More than one third of Iraqi children are thought to have moderate to severe mental illness and all social indicators, from divorce to suicide, show significant increases.
There’s only one psychiatrist for every 300,000 Iraqi people and just one psychiatric hospital in the entire country. Abu Leith, the hospital’s registrar, has been in post for decades and embodies its memory of Iraq’s dark times. He signs in all the new arrivals and takes it on himself to give a decent burial to those patients who die in hospital. Some have been admitted with no documentation; they languish inside for years, their identities never known.
The film tells the stories of children who, as a result of extreme trauma, are suffering a severe physical impairment such as the inability to talk or walk. This loss of ability is the physical expression of a mental condition, as we see with Maryam, who was 12 years old when IS sold her into sex slavery. Later she was forced to wear a suicide belt, though she managed to cut herself free from it. Since then, her speech has become impaired; we see her being treated by a mobile psychiatry unit, and finding some comfort in learning to be a seamstress.
As this film reveals, the biggest obstacle to overcoming Iraq’s mental health crisis is stigma. This is now changing, as community leaders encourage Iraqis to defy the traditional culture of shame and speak without fear about their abuse. More and more women are coming forward to speak out.
A year in the making, BBC Arabic’s documentary Iraq: A State of Mind explores the mental health crisis that’s gripped the Iraqi people.
Chair
Christopher Mitchell became Documentaries Editor at BBC Arabic in April 2018, after two years working for the BBC as a freelance executive producer. He is an award-winning writer, director and executive producer, having made many films for networks including BBC TV, ITV, Channel 4, ARTE, WDR Germany and Al Jazeera English. He was managing director of the independent production company OR Media from 2005 until 2014.
Speaker
Namak Khoshnaw is a Kurdish filmmaker from Iraq who obtained his MA degree at the University of West London in film and Art. He has produced numerous compelling documentaries for the BBC uncovering the plight of the Iraqi people living under Islamic State rule. Among his work is the harrowing documentary titled Slaves of the Caliphate which tells the story of Yazidi women held as sex slaves by ISIS fighters. the film was broadcasted internationally in 2014, and Namak won New Ground Award for outstanding reporting. He has also produced number of 360 virtual reality films for the BBC and New York Times.
Photograph courtesy of Namak Khoshnaw.
]]>
Evelyn documents the story of a family overcoming the unthinkable. On a walking odyssey across the United Kingdom, they confront a past they’ve been unable to talk about, whilst simultaneously repairing the fractures in their own relationships.
Director of Oscar-winning documentary ‘White Helmets’ Orlando von Einsiedel turns the cameras on himself, as he and his parents and siblings embark on a journey in remembrance of their brother and son, Evelyn, who took his own life over a decade ago.
Part quest film, part road-trip, part memoir, Evelyn seeks to address the past, in order to find some peace in the present, and look to the future.
As societies worldwide are waking up to the the fact that suicide – especially among young men – is tragically quotidian, Evelyn uses its lofty, awe-inspiring imagery of the UK and raw personal elegance to convince the viewer that we must talk more about mental health.
Run time: 92 minutes
Speakers:
Orlando von Einsiedel is the multi award-winning director of the Oscar® winning Netflix short documentary, THE WHITE HELMETS. His first feature VIRUNGA, received both a BAFTA and Oscar® nomination, going on to win over 50 awards internationally included an EMMY, a Peabody, a Grierson and a duPont-Columbia Award for outstanding journalism. Orlando is drawn to telling inspiring human narratives from around the world, frequently combining intimate personal stories with powerful visual aesthetics and in-depth investigations. He has worked in every continent, often in impenetrable and difficult environments, from pirate boats to war zones. Formally a professional snowboarder, Orlando is co-founder of UK award-winning production company, Grain Media.
Joanna Natasegara is a British film producer best known for the Academy Award® winning Netflix Original short documentary, THE WHITE HELMETS. Joanna also produced BAFTA and Oscar® nominated documentary, VIRUNGA, which won over 50 international awards including an EMMY, a Peabody, a Television Academy Honor, a Grierson and a duPont-Columbia Award for outstanding journalism. Joanna has led some of the world’s most impactful global film campaigns, including Doc Impact Award winners VIRUNGA and NO FIRE ZONE; films which focus on some of the most difficult social change issues of our time. Her work is global in scope, collaborating with organisations and international leaders across the political spectrum, as well as the business, arts and philanthropic worlds. Joanna founded award-winning UK production company, Violet Films.
]]>
*Tickets for the UNBROKEN Short Prize screening at The Frontline Club are available here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/event/
UNBROKEN 2017 is a mixed arts mental health awareness festival. Its main aim is to increase awareness of the issues surrounding mental illness, to reduce any attendant stigma by opening up a conversation, and to confound expectations as to what exactly a production about ‘mental health’ might involve!
UNBROKEN made its debut as a theatre ‘mini-festival’, produced by Shadow Road – a small company with an enduring interest in mental health – at Theatre503 on World Mental Health Day last October. The 2016 festival sold out and the feedback was fantastic so this year it is returning, with some practical workshops, a literary event, and the staged reading of a powerful play about adolescent mental health by award-winning playwright Ali Taylor having been added to the art exhibitions, live music, new writing, original choreography and panel discussions that proved such a hit last year.
Most importantly, we are also launching the UNBROKEN Short Film Prize, so that this year we can encourage the exploration of the vital issue of mental health in yet another art form. We hope that a number of film makers – young and not so young, first timers and old hands, those with experience of the issues and those with an interest – will feel inspired by the subject matter and the freedom they have to explore it.
We received a huge number of high-quality submissions and it is with great pleasure that we announce the official shortlist for the inaugural UNBROKEN 2017 Short Film Prize. We look forward to sharing them with you on Saturday 28th October 2017.
THE UNBROKEN 2017 SHORT FILM PRIZE – THE SHORTLIST:
️ When You are Old – Directed by Koh Chong Wu
️ COLD – Directed by Sven Niemeyer
️ On the Spectrum – Directed by Gerard McKenzie
️ Tommy – Directed by James Sieradzki
️ This Is What Depression Feels Like – Directed by Charlie Mason
️ Three Days Gone – Directed by John Gutierrez
️ The Moment – Directed by Sonali Bhattacharya
️ Flex: No Hard Feelings – Directed by Ollie Gardner
Following the screening (which will include an interval and a Q&A with some of the filmmakers), the audience will have the opportunity to vote for their favourite film. Prizes will then be presented to the recipient of the Audience’s Choice award, along with the Winner and the Runner Up, as chosen by the judges. Finally, there will be time for everyone to chat and network with the film makers, festival organisers and fellow audience members as we adjourn to the nearby Fountains Abbey pub at 5pm!
More information about the whole festival can be found elsewhere on the website: www.unbrokenfest.com
Tickets for the UNBROKEN Short Prize screening at The Frontline Club are available here: www.ticketsource.co.uk/event/
See the report online here.
Chair – Hannah Storm
Hannah Storm is Director of the International News Safety Institute (INSI), a UK registered charity whose members include some of the world’s leading news organisations. INSI’s work focuses on physical, psychological, and digital safety and it provides a network for members to share information to ensure journalists stay out of harm’s way. Storm is author of The Kidnapping of Journalists: Reporting from High Risk Conflict Zones (with Robert G. Picard) and No Woman’s Land: On the Frontlines with Female Reporters. Before joining INSI, she worked for organisations including the BBC, Reuters, ITN, and Oxfam.
Speakers
Dr Anthony Feinstein
Dr Feinstein is professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and director of the Neuropsychiatry Programme at Sunnybrook Health Science Centre. He has undertaken numerous studies looking at how journalists are affected psychologically by their work in zones of war, conflict, and disaster. He is the author of Journalists Under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War (Johns Hopkins University Press) and Shooting War.
Will Vassilopoulos
Will Vassilopoulos is a freelance Video Journalist primarily working for Agence France-Presse (AFP). He holds a bachelor’s degree in biology & sports sciences and a master’s degree in exercise physiology from Manchester Metropolitan University. He started his journalism career in text for Japanese news agency Kyodo News before becoming a news anchor for the English-language bulletin at Greece’s state broadcaster ERT. In 2011 he went behind the camera and has since covered topics such as Greece’s economic crisis, political unrest in Egypt, Turkey and Romania, the conflict in Ukraine and most recently the migration crisis in Europe. He is the recipient of the 2016 Rory Peck Award for News for his film “Fear and Desperation: Refugees and Migrants Pour into Greece”.
Photo Credits: Yannis Behrakis
]]>
Dr Lynne Jones has been a psychiatrist working in conflict zones for over 20 years. From treating soldiers in the Bosnian war, to attending to families affected by the Haitian earthquake, or those who lost relatives in the Sri Lankan tsunami, Dr Jones is coming to the Frontline Club to discuss and share her experiences of working in some of the world’s biggest disaster zones. She will be discussing issues such as if there is a right approach to deal with mental health in humanitarian disasters, and is there a different way we approach mental health in crises in third world countries compared to developed ones? Dr Jones’ field diaries have been published in the London Review of Books and her audio diaries broadcast on the BBC World Service.
Joining this discussion is Dr Conor Kenny from Doctors Without Borders. Dr Kenny has been providing healthcare for some of the most vulnerable people in Europe. His first assignment began in Idomeni, a transit camp for refugees on the Greek border with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. After residents of the Idomeni camp were evicted, Conor moved to Lesbos to work providing healthcare in specialised camps designated for the most vulnerable refugees on the island. The refugees here face a number of medical and psychosocial problems as a result of their extensive journeys that Dr Kenny has been treating.
Moderator – Rob Williams CEO War Child
Rob Williams is Chief Executive of War Child, the UK charity dedicated to supporting children affected by conflict. War Child delivers psychosocial support, child protection, education and livelihoods programmes in a range of countries affected by war including Central African Republic, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, and The Democratic Republic of Congo, helping children who have been abused, abducted, displaced or separated from their families. Previously in relief and development Rob has worked for Save the Children, the British Red Cross and Concern Worldwide in Africa and Asia leading country programmes and also managing emergency response. In the UK he has been, at various times, Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England, Chief Executive of Bliss – the premature baby charity, and Chief Executive of the Fatherhood Institute He is married with two children and lives in Cambridge.
Click on the link to see Dr Lynne Jones’ new book, Outside the Asylum: A Memoir of War, Disaster and Humanitarian Psychiatry
]]>
Inspired by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s best-selling book The Spirit Level, Katharine Round’s accomplished debut feature illustrates a more personal account of how inequality shapes our societies.
The film weaves together seven characters each striving for a better life: Wall Street psychologist Alden wants to make it to the top 1%; Glaswegian rapper Darren just wants to stay sober; Newcastle carer Rochelle wishes her job wasn’t looked down on so much; Jen in Sacramento, California, doesn’t even talk to the neighbours in her upscale gated community – they’ve made it clear to her she isn’t “their kind”. It becomes clear that a higher income doesn’t ensure happiness and inequality hurts us all – rich and poor.
The film travels across the world and into individual lives to see how broad economic shifts have shaped not only our physical circumstances, but also the way we think and what we believe in. It reveals, piece by piece, the forces that have undermined our economic foundations, and led to a dramatic transfer of wealth to the very top: the top 0.1% in the US own as much wealth as the bottom 90% of the population.
The film features high profile commentators, including former economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher, Sir Alan Budd, historian Sir Max Hastings, economist Ha-Joon Chang, Noam Chomsky and epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot. The Divide plots parallel character narratives together with an archive spine, juxtaposing news reports from 1979 to the present day, with the outcomes of those economic decisions and the thinking that made them possible. The lines are clearly drawn between the big picture and the very personal, producing a new and more human way of depicting the true toll of rising inequality.
Directed and produced by: Katharine Round
Executive producer: Christopher Hird
Runtime: 74′
Country: United Kingdom/Lebanon/Switzerland
On Monday 22 June 2015, the Frontline Club screened Mark Aitken’s new film Dead When I Got Here.
The film is centred on Josué, a former psychiatric patient who oversees the day to day running of a mental asylum in the Mexican border town of Juárez. Through Josué, Aitken tells the story of both the asylum and a town left gutted and destitute by the drug trade.
The evening was hosted by Ed Vulliamy, a writer at the Guardian and the Observer and author of award-winning book Amexica: War Along the Border Line. Vulliamy also maintains a strong connection to the city of Juárez.
Mark Aitken (left) and Ed Vulliamy
“He’s a poet,” said Aitken about Josué, “nothing less than a poet. None of [the film] was scripted, he just came out with those lines. I’ve recorded hours with him and there’s a lot more besides.”
Josué has a very dark past, and spent decades in prison for his involvement with drugs. He has now found solace in his work at the asylum and, through the documentary, has been reunited with his daughter.
This film is not, however, about redemption. “I don’t believe in redemption,” said Aitken, who told the Frontline Club audience that he was keen to avoid a clichéd Hollywood narrative. “If this was a Hollywood version you’d have Josué playing with his grandchildren and running [a franchise of asylums]. But it’s not,” he said.
One of the motivations behind the film was to show the connection between us in the West and those who we perceive as being ‘others’.
Mark Aitken
Vulliamy was keen to stress the economic connection that globalised capitalism creates between the developed world and places like Juárez.
“Juárez is… the carberetor under your car, it is the electronics in your mobile phone. It’s all made, if not there then in places like that,” said Vulliamy. “We’re not watching another world, are we Mark? We’re watching very much a part of our lives.”
There is an exploitative relationship, Vulliamy argued, which is shown in films like this one. “They make us,” said Vulliamy, referring to the town’s manufacturing past, “and we use them.”
Aitken told the club that initially he was somewhat scared of the patients at the asylum, but he gradually grew to respect them. “These are survivors,” he said, “they could teach us a few things.”
“You know we’re just more fortunate, that’s the only difference. So this ‘us and them’ dichotomy of us somehow being superior because we’re comfortable is all back to front. It’s the wrong way round,” said Aitken.
Making the film was very challenging for Aitken. The act of filming itself was easy, even ideal, a she only ever had one complaint from the patients. “Most people tended to repeat their actions…”
Ed Vulliamy
Daily life at the asylum was likewise very repetitive, giving Aitken the opportunity to get the shots he needed. “Every day they do these routines, so every day I filmed the same thing, the same people, and I could film it in different ways. And once I’d exhausted it I would move on.”
The difficulty came in the responsibility that he had as a filmmaker to ethically tell the patients’ stories. The people that he was filming were very uninhibited. “They haven’t really got the capacity to say ‘no, fuck off, don’t film me,’” said Aitken, “… I don’t want to just be a voyeur here, I have to do something with this and show them in a particular way.”
What Aitken wanted to show is that we are the same as the people in the asylum, and that we are also all connected.
“If we’re constantly told that we’re different, and the trouble is over there and not here, then it make us feel better,” said Aitken. “Maintaining that fear is very much to do with, ‘well, look at them over there, they’re falling off boats trying to get to Italy from Africa… lucky it’s not you’.”
There is reluctance, both Vulliamy and Aitken agreed, to accept that poverty and drug money are directly connected.
“I mean this seems to be the huge… why it’s not ‘them and us’, why we are them. The money out of that misery [in Juárez and similar environments] is being spent on the golf courses of Connecticut and in the wine bars of Holland Park and Canary Wharf,” said Vulliamy.
“There is this kind of abyss that you [Aitken] and I spend our lives trying to cross, trying to tell people, ‘this is you and you are it’,” he said.
Mark Aitken (left) and Ed Vulliamy