The silver screen hasn’t always been kind to psychiatry, according to Dr. Harry Karlinsky, a UBC psychiatrist and director of the Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Festival, which takes place May 8 to 11 at the Pacific Cinémathèque.

“Not only psychiatry but those with mental illness have been vilified. Inevitably, it’s a homicidal maniac released from an asylum,” Karlinsky said by phone. Karlinsky’s Frames of Mind Mental Health Film Series, a monthly program that screens films and fosters discussion about mental illness, has evolved into an annual festival that’s now in its fifth year. Film screenings are paired with moderated panel discussions
featuring filmmakers and psychiatric experts.

This year’s films, which include both documentaries and dramas, explore such varied topics as bipolar disorder (A Summer in the Cage ), domestic abuse and obsessive love (To Love Someone ), posttraumatic stress disorder (Crash Landing ), and drug addiction and homelessness (Devil Plays Hardball, by local director Nijole Kuzmickas). Full details are at www.cinematheque.bc.ca/ .