Screening Conditions Psychoanalytic Film Festival: The Blank Page

The Institute of Psychoanalysis launches its 2010 Screening Conditions programme with The Blank Page, a psychoanalytic exploration of the craft and challenges of writing as portrayed in four exceptional films. The Blank Page series, held at the ICA in London, begins on 17 January and runs until 14 March 2010.   The first series within the Screening Conditions programme, a year-round programme of events at which classic films are shown and discussed from a psychoanalytic angle, The Blank Page includes films from a range of genres and eras. Psychoanalyst Andrea Sabbadini, who chairs the events, says, "The focus is on the profession of writing, looking at the way filmmakers have observed writers. These four wonderful films portray writers who are experiencing different degrees of personal or professional crisis. Writers are particularly sensitive to their own and other people's lives, stories and problems, which will make them an interesting subject for discussion from a psychoanalytic perspective."    Andrea Sabbadini will be joined by guest speaker Cheryl Moskowitz, an author, poet and psychodynamic counsellor with a special interest in the therapeutic value of writing, and there will be an opportunity for the audience to take part in the discussions.  Films shown will include The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), a lavish feature starring Gregory Peck, based on Hemingway’s short story in which a dying man looks back on the failures of his writing career; Deconstructing Harry (1997), Woody Allen's dark comedy in which he plays a successful writer whose fiction has had a negative effect on his relationships; the Cohen brothers' Barton Fink (1991), a brooding story of a Hollywood scriptwriter suffering from writer's block; and Il Postino (1994), a touching tale of a man who learns about language and romance from an exiled poet.    Andrea Sabbadini says, "We can draw interesting parallels between the relationship of postman and poet in Il Postino with the psychoanalytic relationship. The postman visits the poet daily to get some insight, in this case into metaphors and rhymes, through which he develops as a person. Barton Fink portrays a man completely isolated and unable to relate to the world of Hollywood, becoming a victim of the circumstances around him."    The 2010 Screening Conditions programme continues in April with The Dimmer Perspective, which looks at films that portray people with mental disabilities, and from September 2010 Watching the Blind will examine the way filmmakers have tackled blindness in cinema. Guest speakers for Watching the Blind will include film scholar and author Professor Peter Evans and Michael Brearley, President of the Institute of Psychoanalysis.    For further information: www.psychoanalysis.org.uk/cinema.htm     Press Contact: Ginette Goulston-Lincoln, 07958 448002,  ginette@goulston-lincoln.com   or Caroline Graty, 07984 911913,  carolinegraty@mac.com   

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