I’m personally biased, but always find myself mesmerized by stories of how art provides healing and an outlet of expression for those who live with a chronic mental illness. Somehow I have the feeling that the German documentary Faces Of An Exhibition, a somewhat abstract and totally immersive film about a collaborative exhibit created entirely by artists living with schizophrenia, is a bit of a hard sell. I would definitely recommend giving it a watch and here’s my pitch.
At 38 minutes it falls into a bit of an “awkward length” category, so it’s bundled with the features in the virtual festival. It’s not as much of a time commitment as a full-length feature, so I say give it 5-10 minutes. “Immersive” is truly the best word for it. It throws you right into the planning and preparation for the exhibit, and the creation of the pieces. There is very little explanation or exposition or any character backstory to speak of, just a focus on the creation of the pieces and what they mean to the artists. All of them convey the experience of living with schizophrenia in some way—whether it’s eerie marks on a window reflecting a hospital stay, a sound art piece about a recorded voice someone hears in their head and getting the inflection just right, or an abstract portrait that conveys the separation of the voice from the face. As you may have gathered, these works are explained by the artists enough to place them in context, but the vast majority of the film just follows the process.
Schizophrenia is probably one of the most stigmatized of mental illnesses, often perceived as dangerous or scary. The narrative bits that are in the film mostly speak to this stigma, which is characterized as almost being a second illness. Excluded from jobs, relationships, and society at large, the artists with the diagnosis feel grossly mischaracterized and have a desire to change public opinion through their art. What a lot of people don’t realize, one of the participants says, is that most people living with schizophrenia, most of the time, live in a state of relative stability. The face of schizophrenia is not what the mainstream media makes it out to be, but rather more like the faces of the artists in this film, who appear to be lively, intelligent, focused, and engaged. People who have a mental illness, one of them even says, are usually the ones who have lived a more interesting life.
You can still watch Faces Of An Exhibition in the virtual festival free through 11/5: https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2023/play/651cbd014d8e1200c5cdebfa
