To Serve the Mind

This film tells the story of a young woman who suffers a mental breakdown, recovers fully in a mental hospital and returns home. Instead of the understanding and support she most needs from her friends and associates, she is virtually ostracized. The film makes a plea for a change in the sort of public thinking that places a stigma upon people who have suffered from an illness of the mind rather than of the body.

What happens to people who suffer from mental illnesses and commit violent crimes? Where do they go? How are they treated? Little is known about the facilities-once called asylums for the criminally insane-to which some of these patients are sent. Now known as forensic psychiatric hospitals, these are institutions inside which patients disappear, away from public view for years. Four-time Emmy winner John Kastner has been granted unprecedented access to one such hospital: the Brockville Mental Health Centre. He filmed inside this facility for 18 months, allowing 46 patients and 75 staff to share their experiences with stunning frankness. The result is two remarkable documentaries. The first, NCR: Not Criminally Responsible, premiered at Hot Docs in the spring of 2013 and follows the story of a violent patient released into the community, much to the alarm of his victim and her family. Kastner's film, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, returns to the Brockville Mental Health Centre to follow treatment processes normally hidden from the public, profiling four patients-two men and two women-as they struggle to gain control over their lives, so they can return to a society that often fears and demonizes them.

Here's a concert with a difference: The fifteen singers all have mental health problems. Yet they've recorded a CD and have performed on stage in front of 500 people. Filmmaker Blaise Barrette spent a year with them, filming their confidence-building adventure. From the difficult first singing lessons to the highly successful concert, Ces voix oubliées bears witness to an amazing change in the participants. An inspiring documentary that defies prejudice. In French with English subtitles.