Beyond the Shadow of Mental Illness

 

In this illuminating, intimate documentary portraying individuals with schizophrenia and mental illness, viewers witness how the mentally ill are managing their illness and leading self-directed lives at Founders House of Hope, a residential care program for the mentally ill.   The documentary is remarkably honest as it follows residents sharing how their broken lives have been reconstituted at Founders. The courage and defiance to not surrender to their illness is revealed when a resident celebrates the publication of his autobiography titled Beyond Psychosis. In powerful candor, residents share how mental illness has not taken their life away, but presented complex challenges enabling them to discover more about themselves and their resilience. Misconceptions about mental illness will be corrected in this documentary and the effects of being marginalized and socially stigmatized will be appreciated in an acute way by viewers.  The film’s existential elements reveal how residents draw meaning and purpose in life from the psychosocial rehabilitation activities at Founders.  The pull for their creative expression in metaphor, and in the form of art, poetry and songwriting reveals in a magnificent, authentic medium how life is forever altered by incurable mental illness.  A resident in the film sums up his life through the title of his poem Tamed with Understanding.