Film Categories: Mental Health

  • People Have Their Strife Now and Then

    Less is more, and it’s humorously proven as people are told to “Stand on the X” while the camera records them. Although they’re asked to do nothing, of course they do everything but. Personalities are revealed through a minimalist format.

  • Picture Show

    Psychological ink blots come to life. A story for everyone – you bring the plot. Disturbing subject matter regarding religion and sex.

  • Salvage Archives

    Salvage Archives continues Rufelds’ research into cultural and subcultural expressions of late capitalist alienation, and the forms of collective storytelling that take shape under the shadows of unjust material systems. Told in a hybrid narrative style, mixing elements of essay film, social realism, and neo-noir, Salvage Archives oscillates between two narrative threads, counterposing a lonely online conspiracy theorist and a disembodied historian of agriculture. The two figures recount their stories in alternating chapters, perversely mirroring each other as they wade into the knotted abstractions of capitalist productive systems, logistics networks, patterns of accumulation, and systemic waste. As both narrators’ grandiose…

  • The Thought That Counts

    The film follows Davis, grappling with profound grief and illness while struggling with memories of his late mother. His devoted husband attempts to uplift him with a heartfelt gift: a home to raise butterflies. As they navigate unexpected challenges in nurturing the delicate creatures (the cocoons already hatched), Davis confronts his past and finds solace in the transformative power of memories and the healing journey of letting go.

  • Broca

    Using poetry, interviews with psychologists and survivors, and corporeal imagery, Broca is an experimental documentary hybrid that explores how the mind-body connection is altered after trauma. The Broca’s Area in the brain is involved primarily in speech production. During a traumatic event or when trying to recall a traumatic event, this area shuts down. This makes it harder for a survivor to talk about what’s happened. Our project offers a platform for survivors to tell their stories both verbally and non-verbally.

  • My Grandpa Ivan

    As Danny grieves the loss of his Grandpa and begins his transition into professional soccer, he feels pulled back to the cherished memories of his summers in the small town of Teteven, Bulgaria. Reflecting on his youth with his grandpa, Danny recalls timeless lessons and a friendship that left a lasting impression on everyone in the town. When Ivan gifts Danny a vibrant orange soccer ball the trajectory of his life changes forever igniting an irrepressible passion for the sport. Under Ivan’s mentorship, Danny becomes a skilled player, dazzling defenders in club games. However, as Danny grows older, Ivan’s health…

  • The Gloria of Your Imagination

    New York based film artist Jennifer Reeves, known for her 16mm experiments, revisits “Three Approaches to Psychotherapy” (1965), which portrays Gloria Szymanski in sessions with three male therapists. Through found footage and tactile interventions on film, Reeves reframes the material into an empowering portrait. By adding home movies, newsreels, and advertisements, she situates Gloria’s story in context, exposing the unequal power dynamics behind the original film. Gloria emerges not as a case study but as a complex, vivid woman whose openness about her fears, desires, and contradictions still resonates today.

  • The Sky After Rain (Shaya Goldoust)

    Based on Shaya Goldoust’s audio journals narrating her attempts at testing rigid gender boundaries, and the transphobic incidents which led to her leaving her family and motherland, Iran.

  • The Sky After Rain (Shyla Hope)

    Based on recorded audio interviews with Shyla Hope discussing her inner self journey to understanding and accepting her identity as a lesbian trans woman growing up in Iran.

  • Pocket Call

    Isolated in an old house, a man sees his daily life merge with that of a female presence that gradually invades his space. Trapped within his own home, he must confront this strangely familiar ghost.