On Friday 3 May, our International Film Awards will take place at the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Glasgow. The awards have long been an outlet for the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival to stay connected to the wider world, allowing us to welcome directors from across the globe and celebrate the very best in mental health filmmaking.
Hosted by leading film critic Alistair Harkness, the event offers the chance to see excerpts from all winning titles, find out what the films mean to those who made them, and discover who will be awarded our prestigious Grand Jury Prize. This prize will be awarded to a film that combines outstanding cinematic achievement with what the jury considers to be an important and heartfelt exploration of mental health. The evening will then conclude with a drinks reception in the Saramago Terrace Bar at the CCA.
Over the following three days, we will screen all of the award-winning titles in full, plus a host of further selections curated entirely from submissions received from around the world. Screening over the bank holiday weekend, our official selection features no fewer than 40 titles, filmed as close to home as Glasgow, and as far afield as Australia, Canada and Paraguay. Building on our usual hub of activity at CCA, we are also delighted to present screenings at Glasgow Film Theatre and Flourish House.
The festival theme Connected features throughout the programme, from cinematic work that explores the impact of chance encounters, to films that consider the role that relationships, families and communities play in our lives – and our mental health. Family connections are explored in powerful feature documentaries Evelyn, in which a family walk the length of the UK in an attempt to come to terms with their grief, and Irene’s Ghost, in which a son unravels his family’s silence to find out what happened to his mother, who died when he was three.
The short films We Are All Here and The Song and the Sorrow explore the impact of suicide on, respectively, Scotland’s hip-hop community and Canadian singer-songwriter Catherine MacLellan, whose musician father took his own life. Our varied Documentary Shorts programme features diverse stories about individuals whose lives have been affected by mental illness, trauma and poverty: including Asylum, in which a man recounts his experiences with psychosis as he prepares to leave a psychiatric hospital; and Model Childhood, an autobiographical, partly-animated documentary about a filmmaker striving for a better future as a survivor of childhood sexual trauma.
As always, we will be hosting post-screening discussions after both features and shorts programmes, featuring filmmakers and others involved in the productions wherever possible. Often proving as enlightening as the films themselves, we hope that these conversations continue after the screenings and stay with you well beyond that. We will be announcing details of attending filmmakers and Q&As very soon. Keep up to date with the latest announcements by connecting with us on Facebook and Twitter.
Finally, to made our film programme more accessible, we have introduced sliding scale ticket pricing for all screenings at the CCA and Flourish House. You can choose what you pay based on your circumstances, which we hope means that everyone can come along to as many features and shorts programmes as they have time for. Find out more here: Sliding Scale Ticket Pricing
Book Tickets for International Film Awards 2019
2019 Award Winners
ANIMATION
Herman Brown is Feeling Down
Dan Castro, UK
Anxiety noisily interrupts a simple life in this colourful musical animation, created using digital and traditional techniques.
Sat 4 May, 10.30am | Family Shorts
Mon 6 May, 5.30pm | Scottish Connections
EXPERIMENTAL
On Exile, fragments in search of meaning
Jose Carlos Texeira, USA
Attentiveness to structure and form creates space for individual voices, as ten people share their stories about living with depression.
Sun 5 May, 4.15pm | Radical Voices
PERSONAL NARRATIVE
Model Childhood
Tim Mercier, UK
An autobiographical, partly animated, documentary about a filmmaker striving for a better future as a survivor of childhood sexual trauma.
Sat 4 May, 3.45pm | Documentary Shorts
ANTI-STIGMA
Evelyn
Orlando Von Einsiedel, UK
Twelve years after the suicide of his younger brother, a director and his family walk the length of the UK in an attempt to come to terms with their grief.
Sat 4 May, 6pm | Book Tickets
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY
Irene’s Ghost
Iain Cunningham, UK
A son unravels his family’s silence to find out what happened to his mother, who died when he was three but lives on in his imagination.
Sat 4 May, 1.15pm | Book Tickets
SHORT DOCUMENTARY
We Are All Here
Hannah Currie, UK
A hip-hop community comes together to talk about their issues and challenge stigma after the suicide of a much-loved rapper.
Sun 5 May, 6.15pm | Screening with The Song and the Sorrow
VOICES OF EXPERIENCE
Asylum
Jefta Varwijk and Jaap Van Heusden, Netherlands
Poetic and revealing documentary in which a man recounts his experiences with psychosis as he prepares to leave a psychiatric hospital.
Sat 4 May, 3.45pm | Documentary Shorts
COMMUNITY
An Open Door
Aoise Tutty Jackson, Ireland
A vibrant documentary set in a pioneering community space, which comes alive through music, performance and shared experiences.
Sun 5 May, 2pm | Community Counts
MID-LENGTH DOCUMENTARY
The Song and the Sorrow
Millefiore Clarkes, Canada
A folk singer prepares to pay tribute to her legendary father, who took his own life after a long-term struggle with depression.
Sun 5 May, 6.15pm | Screening with We Are All Here
SHORT DRAMA
I Love You
Victoria Thompson, Australia
Improvised drama filmed with a real life couple, exploring the impact that mental instability can have on a relationship.
Sat 4 May, 8.30pm | Dramatic Shorts