The Madness Among Us + One Key
Portuguese with English subtitles.
What defines us as normal? The Madness Among Us delves into the life inside a psychiatric hospital and its adjacent outpatient resource centre in Brazil, depicting the stories and lives of its characters, some of whom vacillate between living on their own and being institutionalized, between “sanity” and “insanity,” revealing the boundaries of what is considered sane. Beautifully filmed with a contemplative pace that allows the viewer to enter the intimate space of the mostly female protagonists, the documentary asks us to reflect on the inner contradictions, conflicts, desires and errors of our own lives. The film is a realistic portrayal of the paradoxes facing the characters in their reintegration back into society and the treatment of mental illness in Brazil.
“After watching The Madness Among Us, I felt that the realm of the mind was so much larger and more tragic and more wonderful than I had ever imagined before.” (A.M. Mullen)
Quais os limites da nossa sanidade? O que nos define como normais? “A loucura entre nós”, filme dirigido por Fernanda Vareille, lança um olhar sobre os corredores e grades de um hospital psiquiátrico, buscando personagens e histórias que revelem as fronteiras do que é considerado loucura. Através, principalmente, de personagens femininas, o documentário exala as contradições da razão, nos fazendo refletir nossos próprios conflitos, desejos e erros. O filme faz um sensível mergulho nos paradoxos da reinserção da loucura no mundo em geral, subvertendo qualquer tentativa de reduzir as personagens retratadas a marionetes de questões envolvendo a sanidade mental.
Preceded by:
ONE KEY
Canada, 2014
English / 3 min
Director: Karlos Alcázar in attendance
Holden roams the streets of Vancouver while Peter, a senior executive, eats keys, smokes keys and brushes his teeth with keys. The lives of the two will meet for a common good.
Fernanda Vareille (b. Bahia, Brazil) graduated in Cinema from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris), and Documentary from the University of London. Her first film, Let Me Live (2009), received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Amnesty International Film Festival in Paris. She is the founder of the Brazilian production company Águas de Março Filmes.
Credits:
Director: Fernanda Vareille
Producers: Amanda Gracioli, Fernanda Vareille
Cinematographer: Gabriel Teixeira
Sound: João Marcos Tatu
Editors: Nathan Delannoy, Juliana Guanais, Antoine Vareille
Music: Laurent Perez Del Mar
Psychiatric Consultants: Marcelo Veras, Juliana Veras