Philip Brubaker “grew up” with Mental Filmness. His film Brushes With Life, an empathetic documentary about participants in a program highlighting the works of artists living with mental illness, played in the very first Mental Filmness film festival. Philip, always generous and passionate about both film and mental health, traveled from Florida to Chicago to attend and speak about it. I think at the time, we were both finding our footing a bit. In a way, we’ve followed the same trajectory of growth, adopting a more expansive view of both our definition of mental health and our idea of depicting it on film.
Since that initial meeting Philip has veered into the weird and experimental in his on-screen depiction of his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, evoking the feeling of a manic or psychotic episode rather than the clinical definition that would come from a psychiatrist. Some audience members might recall that we screened his film How to Explain Your Mental Illness to Stanley Kubrick in the virtual festival a few years back. I was surprised and delighted to see that Philip had made such a bizarre and personal film, wherein he summoned one of his filmmaking heroes, Kubrick, into his time period and living room to confront him about the depiction of mental illness in his movies.
Murdergame is, as Philip explains here, one of the “wildcards” of the festival. This interview helps explain the unusual Murdergame’s context and fit within the festival. An ostensible film studies essay about themes in Hitchcock’s films, it veers wildly off the rails into surreal imagery of being attacked by physical video filmstrips and Tetris blocks. The film is meant to evoke the visceral feeling of a manic episode rather than a literal portrayal of one, and for someone who shares both Philip’s age and diagnosis I feel its successful in its own weird way.
Mudergame is part of Philip’s Trilogy of Delusion, a trio of films which were inspired by the unhinged freedom of magical manic thinking. Seven years ago when we first met, Philip had never made any of these films and honestly I’m not sure that Mental Filmness would have been selecting and screening films of this nature. Now I’ve become much more aware of how important it is to keep an open mind about what makes a film about mental health, including different perspectives on mental health as well as different types of films, and I have a strong base of volunteers and jury members who are more familiar with different film genres. That being said, I think the placement of Murdergame in the program is the result of the evolution of both Philip’s films and the festival, which have both adopted more complex and nuanced ideas about mental health and what makes a “mental health movie.”
At a breezy nineteen minutes, you can experience the psychological fever dream that is Murdergame in the Mental Filmness virtual festival’s Shorts Block No. 5 (returning filmmakers!) here: Murdergame | Shorts Block No. 5 – Returning Filmmakers | Mental Filmness 2025 Virtual Festival
And if you’re wondering what it’s all about, definitely check out my interview with long-time festival supporter, video essayist/experimental filmmaker and friend Philip Brubaker here: