Film Screening: "The Ills of the Immaginary" Philippe Goyvaertz

October 30, 2024
6pm - 8:30pm
Location
Tucker Hall, 127A
350 James Blair Dr
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location
Access & Features
  • Open to the public
The Ills of the Immaginary

The Ills of the Immaginary (France, 2015, Les Malades de l'imaginaire, 109 minutes)
Written and Directed by Philippe Goyvaertz

Portrait of a psychiatrist who works in the Mayan communities of Guatemala. We follow him when he visits his schizophrenic patients but also when he organizes training for nurses or health promoters. He introduces us to the psychiatric hospital of Guatemala during a meeting with students. He tells us that it is financed by an international pharmaceutical laboratory and that the main part of its action is to promote depression. Little by little, he appears as a commercial instrument at the service of the laboratory. Is he a benefactor or the victim of a commercial system? He is against ethnopsychiatry, but traditional Mayan therapists explain to us the methods they use to treat this type of illness. Two conceptions of mental disorders are exposed between biological causes and social causes.

Sponsored by: Anthropology / Film & Media Studies Program

Contact

[[rawilliams01, Richard Williams]]