The National Capital Area Chapter of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance
will present a screening of Crooked Beauty, a film by Ken Paul Rosenthal, on
Saturday evening February 12th at 7:30 PM, in the George Washington University
Hospital Auditorium (basement level).
This program is free and open to the public.The hospital is located at 900 23rd
Street, NW, next to the Foggy Bottom Metro Station.There is a parking garage
at 22rd and I Streets.
The film is a story set to pictures of Jacks Ashley McNamara, a mental illness
advocate, and her experiences of an abused childhood and psychiatric
hospitalization as a young adult, and she explores that blurred line between
brilliance and madness. The film is beautiful, touching, thought-provoking and
prescient.
Ken Paul Rosenthal has been traveling the country presenting screenings of this
film at film festivals and for groups such as DBSA. The screening will be followed
by a lengthy question and answer session with him.
Crooked Beauty Film Synopsis
Crooked Beauty is a 34-minute poetic documentary that chronicles artist-activist Jacks McNamara’s transformative journey from childhood abuse to psych ward patient to pioneering mental health advocacy. She survived trauma from an alcoholic mother and battled her own substance-abuse issues when diagnosed as ‘bipolar’ at age 19 and incarcerated. Destined to overturn the stigmas usually associated with madness and develop authentic healing models for individuals diagnosed ‘mentally ill’, she co-founds The Icarus Project (theicarusproject.net), an international support network and grassroots media project. Jack’s mission becomes an intense personal quest to live with courage and dignity, and a powerful critique of standard psychiatric treatments. Her poignant and revealing testimonials reach beyond the stereotypes of mental health problems to suggest that extreme sadness and sensitivity is not an illness, but a part of human experience to be explored with creativity and compassion.
Crooked Beauty’s lyrical visual style is integral to its subject matter. The film incarnates a new map for thinking about madness by connecting the fissures and fault lines of human nature to the unstable topography and mercurial weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay Area. Montages of urban and natural landscapes convey the fluctuations of mania and depression described in Jack’s narration. Her presence is further embodied through her paintings and collages, and excerpts from her poetry and journals. Thematically progressive and formally beautiful, Crooked Beauty reframes the diagnosis and treatment of madness as a tool of insight and integration for individuals who openly struggle with their mental health, and anyone who might feel ‘crazy’ in today’s chaotic world. www.crookedbeauty.com
Director Bio
Ken Paul Rosenthal is an independent filmmaker, teacher, and a regional coordinator for the Bay Area Icarus Project. His films weave personal and political narratives into natural and urban landscapes. Ken holds an MA in Creative & Interdisciplinary Arts, an MFA in Cinema Production, and has taught film as a means of cultivating personal vision in workshops and universities nationally and internationally. He is a recipient of a Kodak Award for Cinematography. www.kenpaulrosenthal.com
