2020-2021 Independent Lens Film Season
Bedlam by Kenneth Paul Rosenberg | Haunted by the death of a mentally ill sister, psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg takes on the role of filmmaker to examine a national health crisis. Bedlam follows the poignant stories of people grappling with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other chronic psychiatric conditions.
Join Us for a Free Film Screening & Discussion!
About the Film
Haunted by the death of a mentally ill sister, psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg takes on the role of filmmaker to examine a national health crisis. Bedlam follows the poignant stories of people grappling with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other chronic psychiatric conditions. Impossible to mask when untreated, their symptoms shove them into the path of police officers, ER doctors and nurses, lawyers, and prison guards. Shooting over the course of five years, Rosenberg takes us inside Los Angeles County’s overwhelmed and vastly under-resourced psych ER, a nearby jail warehousing thousands of psychiatric patients, and the homes — and homeless encampments — of people suffering from severe mental illness, where silence and shame often worsen the suffering. Learn more.
About the Filmmaker
Kenneth Paul Rosenberg has been making award-winning documentaries since medical school. While a medical student at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, he also studied film at NYU. He co-produced and co-directed (with Ruth Neuwald Falcon) AN ALZHEIMER’S STORY, a film about a film living with Alzheimer’s Disease, filmed over the course of eighteen months. After his residency in Psychiatry at the Payne-Whitney Clinic at New York Presbyterian Hospital, he did a Fellowship in Public Health, during which he directed and produced THROUGH MADNESS, a film on serious mental illness, for PBS. While a practicing psychiatrist, Ken produced and directed films for HBO, including WHY AM I GAY?: STORIES OF COMING OUT IN AMERICA (Oscar Documentary Feature Shortlist), BACK FROM MADNESS, and DRINKING APART, and executive produced CANCER: EVOLUTION TO REVOLUTION (Peabody Award-winner). He is also the editor of medical textbooks and author of popular books including BEDLAM which was published by Avery/Penguin Random House. Learn more.
WSIU FILM SCREENINGS
Indie Lens Pop-Up is a WSIU media project that brings people together for film screenings and community-driven conversations. The project, which features documentaries from the PBS hit series Independent Lens, draws local residents together to discuss newsworthy topics to family, relationships, and more. These screenings are free and open to the public.
For more information about Indie Lens Pop-Up or Community Cinema, contact (618) 453-4344.