Now available on DVD – Mad Dance: A Mental Health Film Trilogy by Ken Paul Rosenthal

Posted April 1st, 2020 in Announcements, New Acquisitions, New DVDs, News / Events

Ken Paul Rosenthal‘s recent films explore the geography of madness through natural and urban landscapes. These films re-envision the way we think, speak, and feel about emotional distress and wellness in today’s chaotic world by connecting the fissures and fault lines of human nature to the unstable topography and mercurial weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay Area. Using the outer world, home movies, and repurposed social hygiene films to embody and navigate extreme mood states and liminal sensitivities, Rosenthal crafts authentic and redemptive healing narratives. His early work embraced hand-made image making through alternative photochemical and bacterial processes, direct manipulation techniques, and multiple projection performance.

Canyon Cinema is pleased to have DVDs of Rosenthal’s trilogy available for both institutional and personal purchase.

Mad Dance: A Mental Health Film Trilogy (2010-2013 | 68 minutes | COLOR/B&W | SOUND)

Mad Dance is a collection of provocative and beautiful short films that re-envision the way we think, speak and feel about mental distress and wellness in today’s chaotic world. These transformative films offer new maps for navigating madness with insight, healing and hope. The trilogy includes the following films:

Crooked Beauty (30″) is an internationally acclaimed poetic documentary that chronicles artist-activist Jacks McNamara’s transformative journey from psych ward inpatient to pioneering mental health advocacy. It is an intimate portrait of an intense personal quest to live with courage and dignity, and a powerful critique of standard psychiatric treatments. Poignant testimonials connect the fissures and fault lines of human nature to the unstable topography and mercurial weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay Area.

In Light, In! (12″) is a haunting, visual essay about the awkward and angry junctures where our culture struggles to manage its emotional distress. Images recycled from 1950’s-era educational films are set to original compositions by world-renowned cellist, Zoe Keating.

For Shadows (20″) is a contemplative, multi-layered memoir that explores the process of coming to terms with one’s shadow while unraveling the tangled roots of self-harm. The home movies of a child’s formative years and an interior landscape of traumatic domestic memories are excavated and re-constructed alongside sound clips from archival mental hygiene films. Original music by cellist Zoe Keating and Terry Riley & the Grand Valley State New Music Ensemble.