A Documentary about psychoanalytic psychotherapy in India (2016)
Staring: Anup Dhar, Ambedkar University Delhi Santanu Biswas, Jadavpur University Calcutta Sudhir Kakar, Goa and Aleeka Kumar, Mumbai A Master Thesis (in the field of Psychology) shot by Tobias Reisch, International Psychoanalytical University Berlin
Buenos Aires is the psychoanalytic capital of the world boasting twice the number of therapists per head than New York.
Through years of state terror and economic disaster millions of
Argentines have sought refuge on the analyst's couch. Such a demand for
an expensive and time consuming exercise suggests a neurosis on a
national scale. Like the analyst, this film puts Argentina on the couch
to find the roots causes of this unique obsession.
The awards were inspired by Freud's essay "Delusions and Dreams in Jensen's Gradiva (1907(1905)), in which he stated, "Creative writers are valuable allies and their evidence is to be prized highly, for they are apt to know a whole host of things between heaven and earth of which our philosophy has not yet let us dream ... they draw upon sources which we have not yet opened up for science."
Reproduction of the Gradiva which hung next to Freud's Couch. Photo by Edmund Engelman, 1938
Recalling Freud's words, National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP) established the Gradiva® Awards to honor our "valuable allies," including poets, artists, producers, directors, publishers, etc., who have created works that advance psychoanalysis.
2016 Gradiva Nominees
Film
“Vamik’s Room” by Molly Castelloe
A documentary film by Molly Castelloe, about psychoanalyst and 5-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Vamik Volkan
“The Id, the Ego, and the Superego” by Freud Museum London
The annual Gradiva® Awards for the best published, produced, or publicly exhibited works that advance psychoanalysis are presented by the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis at a special awards ceremony during our annual conference each fall in NYC.
Each winner receives a handsome brass plaque etched with the image of Gradiva, which is based on a Pompeiian relief similar to one that hung in Freud’s office. An additional award that includes a $500 scholarship is given to the best student paper that has not been previously published.
Liebe Dein Symptom wie Dich selbst! (German: Thou shalt love thy symptom as thyself; 1996) is a German documentary film about the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek.
"A growing number of psychodynamic professionals are expressing concern about the way in which psychology is being used to support austerity."
WellRedFilms explores the underpinnings of the psycho-coercive practices endorsed by the Government; interviews with leading academic researchers and the Mental Health Resistance Network.
Psychoanalysis in El Barrio features interviews with ten Latino analysts (whose heritage is from a variety of Latino cultures) as well as students. It uniquely shows some of those communities in Philadelphia, New York City, and Texas and Interviews Latinos in the street on their thoughts about therapy. And it discusses issues of dulture, bias, language and transference that occur for Latino analysts and their patients. The video challenges psychoanalysts to understand the culture and economic circumstances of Latinos in the United States and to bring psychoanalytically informed therapy to them. It Is a consequence of conferences held by the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research (IPTAR) and the Clinical Psychology Department of The New School.
CHRISTOPHER CHRISTIAN: The documentary you're about to see emerge from two important conferences held in New York City co-sponsored by IPTAR and The New School. The first conference was Latin American Contributions to Psychoanalysis held in March of 2013. The second conference was Psychoanalysis in El Barrio, held a year later. Both conferences capture complexities of working across issues related to culture, class, immigration, language, ethnicity, and race. And they challenge the not uncommon notion that Hispanic patients who are affected by poverty could only benefit from psychotherapies that relied on very concrete interventions. In these joint ventures, IPTAR and The New School manage to recapture the progressive ideals once embodied in Freud's free clinics.
PATRICIA GHEROVICI: Now we're going to take a trip that is a nice experiment in socioeconomical change, because in a 10 minute ride, we will be able to go from well-off middle-class bustling business, nice, comfortable middle class homes on to an area of post-industrial Philadeliphia with abandoned factories, some of them have been reclaimed as living space with nice loft. At the end of the 18th century, Philadelphia was one of the biggest industrial cities in the world. Many people in Puerto Rico were recruited to come and work, attracted by this by then, very [? byrun ?] factory activity that no longer exists. And now if you look at the setting, it looks like a relic of the past. Then we'll see the collapse of the welfare state with abandoned projects. And we'll make a left there, and that will be the Bloque de Oro-- Golden Block is the heart of the neighborhood. Man-made palm trees to give you memories of beautiful, tropical settings. And the Golden Block sidewalks have this yellow swirl painted onto the ground to comemorate the dream of getting reach quickly in America. Like many of my patients, I am an immigrant. And when I came here, I didn't feel that comfortable doing clinical practice in English, and I found the possibility of working with the Hispanic community of North Philadelphia. And I use the word Hispanic-- and maybe we could talk about that-- purposely. I discovered a vibrant community that lives in very precarious condition that survives in very difficult and challenging situations. I would hear every day at the clinic, every report of a death. Every single day. And this major thoroughfare is where that building across the street is the clinics was called then Centro des [INAUDIBLE] and it was the first place I worked at for almost five years, as my title there was Staff Psychologist and that's where I discovered the neighborhood, the community, and the possibility of psychoanalysis in the Barrio.
Filmmaker Gérard Miller was in school when he first met Lacan. At the age of 20, his elder brother Jacques-Alain Miller became one of Lacan's most loyal pupils. A few years later, he married Lacan's daughter Judith. The filmmaker takes an intimate look at the day-to-day life of one of the world’s most famous and controversial psychoanalysts, through the testimonies of his patients, pupils, friends, and family.
The film features interviews of the eleven Black psychoanalysts who participated in the conferences as well as two other participants. The film is intended to raise awareness of the need for greater openness and understanding of cultural and ethnic pressures in psychoanalytic training, in transferential and countertransferential interactions, and in the recruitment of people of coulour into psychoanalytic training.
These participants contend that psychoanalysis has a long history as a progressive movement devoted to the common good. Psychoanalysis asks us to examine the processes of self deception that perpetuate both individual unhappiness and social structures that are inequitable and oppressive. Yet psychoanalytic education has for the most part focused on training and treating the relatively privileged. The Black psychoanalysts here examine this dilemma and engage in a vibrant and thought provoking discussion about race, culture, class and the unrealized promise of psychoanalysis.
KIRKLAND VAUGHANS: I had an analyst who was exceptionally bright, exceptionally on. But when it came to the issue of race, he was thoroughly blocked. He said to me in his career, he had only treated one Negro. That was his word-- one Negro, which I smiled. He told me, he said, the treatment didn't go well, because all the guy wanted to do was talk about race. I couldn't get him off race, OK? I smiled again.
KATHLEEN WHITE: One of my teachers was one of those old white guys who could not hear the word "race." He used to take his cane and beat the table.
ANNIE LEE JONES: There has been near violent reactions to the things I say about the way racism, culture, and economic inequality affects my life and my work with my patients. I presented in London at the Freud museums, and I talked about race. One psychiatrist grabbed me by my arm and wouldn't let me go up this steps.
Eighth European Psychoanalytic Film Festival 29 October – 1 November 2015, BAFTA London
Films:
Announcements [Annonces]
(Nurith Aviv, 2013, France, 68’)
Synopsis
Announcements (Annonces) is a French documentary that explores words and images in both philosophical and religious contexts. Seven women respond to the theme of ‘announcements,’ taking as their cue the announcements to Hagar, Sarah and Mary in the Old Testament, New Testament, and Koran. In portrait-like interviews, the women reflect not only on universal topics, but also on personal anecdotes and private histories.
Showing at 10.20am on Saturday 31 October
The British Classic: The Browning Version
(Anthony Asquith, 1951, UK, 87’)
Synopsis
We are delighted to announce that our ‘British Classic’ screening for epff8 is Asquith’s 1951 The Browning Version. Based on the successful play by Terence Rattigan, and starring Michael Redgrave and Jean Kent, the picture won best screenplay and best actor at the 1951 Cannes Film Festival. The film tells the story of Andrew Crocker-Harris, a once brilliant scholar reduced to bitterness and pedantry in his role as a Classics teacher at a boys’ school. Loathed by his students and cuckolded by his wife, Andrew is serving his last day at the school due to ill health. However, an encounter with a sympathetic pupil causes him to re-evaluate his actions.
Showing at 8.30pm on Friday 30 October
In the Crosswind [Risttuules]
(Martti Helde, 2014, Estonia, 87’)
Synopsis
In the Crosswind is one of two Estonian films screening at epff8. The film focuses on the Soviets’ deportation of 40,000 Estonians, Lithuanians and Latvians from the Baltic region to Siberia in 1941. Central to the story is Erna, a married philosophy student who is herded onto a train and despatched to the remote area alongside her daughter, Eliide. Over fifteen years, Erna never gives up hope of returning to her home, and the film (beautifully shot in black and white) uses Erna’s experience to both formally and philosophically explore the passage and relativity of time.
Showing at 4.30pm on Saturday 31 October
The Flat
(Arnon Goldfinger, 2011, Israel, 97’)
Synopsis
The second documentary entry in the epff8 programme is the remarkable story of Arnon Goldfinger’s family. The Flat won the Isreali Film Academy Best Documentary in 2011 and begins as a tribute to Goldfinger’s late grandmother, who passed away in Tel Aviv. However, while sorting through her possessions, his family discover evidence of his grandparents’ lasting friendship with Nazi SS officer Leopold von Mildenstein. Repulsed and confused by his findings, Goldfinger undertakes a journey into the past that attempts to make sense of his grandparents’ relationship both to von Mildenstein, and to history.
Showing at 4pm on Friday 30 October
Human Capital [Il capitale umano]
(Paolo Virzì, 2013, Italy 109’)
Synopsis
Adapted from the Stephen Amidon novel and transported from the USA to Italy, Human Capital offers a scathing class critique of contemporary Italian society. Winner of numerous awards, including Best Film at the 2014 Italian Golden Globes, the film opens as a cyclist is run off the road on Christmas Eve. In a series of chapters that take viewers back six months before the incident occurs, Human Capital focuses on three characters whose fates are intertwined by money, consumption and the human capacity for greed.
Showing at 10.50 on Friday 30 October
Ida
(Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013, Poland, 80’)
Synopsis
Ida, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Academy Awards and BAFTAs, tells the story of Anna, a novice nun in 1960s Poland who is about to take her vows. Before doing so, she discovers that her real name is Anna Lebenstein and that her Jewish parents were killed during World War II. Anna also meets her aunt Wanda, a prosecutor who helped secure support for the communist regime in Poland after the war. The force of history upturns Anna’s ordered, if stark, world. She embarks on a journey to find her parents’ graves alongside Wanda, and in doing so makes a journey of self-discovery that affects both of their futures.
Showing at 4.10pm on Friday 30 October
Leviathan [Leviafan]
(Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014, Russia, 140’)
Synopsis
Set on the northwest coast of Russia, Academy Award and BAFTA-nominated Leviathan delves into the corruption and injustice that blights the lives of ordinary Russian people. When a corrupt local mayor orders the demolition of Nikolai’s house and business to take control of the land, Nikolai calls on a friend in Moscow to help save his family from ruin. However, their attempts are futile in the face of the ruling elite’s machinations. With its biblical overtones and depictions of class struggle, the Golden Globe winning film paints a bleak picture of life for the inhabitants of Russia’s peripheries.
Showing at 9am on Saturday 31 October
October November [Oktober November]
(Gotz Spielmann, 2013, Austria, 110’)
Synopsis
On learning that her ailing father is dying, successful Berlin-based television and film actress Sonja returns to her family home in small-town Austria. There, she is reunited for the first time in many years with her married sister Verena, who has devoted her life to caring for their sick father. Both sisters must contend not only with the resentment that they feel toward one another, but also with the despair and emptiness that each recognizes in the other.
Showing at 6.10pm on 31 October
Still Life
(Uberto Pasolini, 2013, Italy/UK, 87’)
Synopsis
John is an obsessively organised council worker responsible for locating the next of kin when people die alone. In the rare cases that he cannot find family members, he arranges funerals and often attends as the sole mourner. Immersed in the processes of bereavement and death, John (Eddie Marsan, who won best British actor for the role at the 2013 Edinburgh International Film Festival) is out of step with the modern world. When he learns that his department is being downsized, a complex final case offers him an opportunity to reflect on how he lives his life.
The Eighth Psychoanalytic Film Festival (epff8) will show ten extraordinary feature films that reflect the theme Turning Points: Individuals, Groups, Societies. The programme consists of pictures produced in countries including France, Russia and Estonia and that examine the lives of characters from tangerine farmers in Georgia to wealthy financiers in Italy. The Festival offers guests an excellent opportunity to watch some of the most exciting films in contemporary European cinema, including three nominees for the ‘Best Film in a Foreign Language’ prize at the 2015 Academy Awards.
"As always, Erich Fromm speaks with with wisdom, compassion, learning and insight into the problems of individuals trapped in a social world that is needlessly cruel and hostile" - Noam Chomsky.
