PSYCHOANALYSIS & CINEMA

PSYCHOANALYSIS &
CINEMA

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2008 programme
Series of Films and Discussions on


SCREENING CONDITIONS

A psychoanalytic exploration of films representing various forms of psychopathology and other emotional conditions



Introduced by psychoanalyst Andrea Sabbadin















Please include a stamped addressed envelope.

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Report on the 3rd
European Psychoanalytic Film Festival (epff3)



Andrea Sabbadini



Organised and hosted by our Society, the 3rd
European Psychoanalytic Film Festival took place in
London from 3 to 6 November 2005. Some 260 delegates
coming from over 20 different countries (as remote
as Brazil, Canada, the USA, Russia, South Korea and
Australia) took part in the ongoing creative
interdisciplinary dialogue between cinema and
psychoanalysis.



In the course of the opening reception at Regent’s
College, psychoanalysts, therapists, filmmakers,
scholars and students were welcomed by Roger Kennedy
as President Elect of our Society and by myself as
Chairman of epff3. Film historian Ian
Christie and Helen Taylor Robinson then introduced
the screening of two powerful Czeck animation shorts
by Jan Svenkmajer, a world master of this medium.




Proceedings started the following morning in the
prestigious theatres of BAFTA (the British Academy
of Film and Television Arts) in Piccadilly.
Throughout two days, delegates were offered an
intense programme of screenings of movies - some of
them never seen before in this country - from
different European cinematic traditions, which they
then had the opportunity of discussing with panels
of psychoanalysts, film directors, screenwriters and
academics. Some of the themes covered by such films
included the unlikely friendship between two very
different men (Elling), the doomed attempts
of an adolescent girl to rescue her mother from a
life of prostitution (Or), the plight of
70,000 Finnish children evacuated to Sweden during
WW2 (Mother of Mine), the psychological
conflict of a man involved in a hit-and-run car
accident (Wolfsburg), the sado-masochistic
relationship between a girl and a man who would only
love anorexic women (First Love), the
reconstruction through family movies, diaries and
still photographs of the life and suicide of two
filmmakers’ own parents (Un’ora sola ti vorrei
and Boogie-Woogie Daddy).



Lectures and panels, generously illustrated with
clips from the works being presented, looked closely
at such works as Un Chien Andalou (Andrew
Webber), Mother Dao (Laura Mulvey and Daniel
Pick) and Talk to Her (Andrea Sabbadini);
investigated the representation of ageing in such
films as The Swimming Pool (Diana Diamond),
Belleville Rendez-Vous (Alexander Stein), The
Flight of the Eagle (Lissa Weinstein) and
Comment J’ai Tué Mon Père
(Jeff Kline); considered a series of films where
time is represented as moving backwards (Ian
Christie), Buñuel’s
development of the idea of amour fou (Peter
Evans), contrasting forms of representations of the
Holocaust in Central and Western European cinema
(Cathy Portugues and Bruce Sklarew).



Other highlights at epff3 were Glen
Gabbard’s tour-de-force on different methodologies
in psychoanalytic film criticism, and the discussion
with actor Imelda Staunton, following the screening
of Mike Leigh’s Vera Drake,of her
role as a backstreet abortionist. The programme of
events culminated withthe presentation to
Bernardo Bertolucci, Honorary President of
epff since it started in 2001, of the
first Honorary Fellowship awarded by the British
Psychoanalytical Society. This brief and moving
ceremony was followed by the viewing of a 35 minute
long compilation, specially prepared for this
occasion by Bertolucci himself, of poignant
sequences from some of his best-loved movies.



The dinner-and-dance party on Guy Fawkes night
aboard the Dixie Queen sailing up and down
the Thames lit by fireworks will be remembered as a
very special one indeed by the over 200 people who
joined us to celebrate epff3.



The final event, on the Sunday morning, chaired by
Laura Mulvey, Glen Gabbard and myself, was a
stimulating plenary discussion. The organisers had a
chance to share with the delegates many useful
comments and constructive suggestions, and were left
with the gratifying impression that most delegates
wished to come back in 2007 for epff4.


http://www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/cinema.htm