Foundation to Launch Film Fest in Atlanta

Psychiatrists and their guests are invited to a night at the movies at the American Psychiatric Foundation's first Film Fest. It will be held Monday, May 23, at 7 p.m. in the Sheraton Atlanta's Grand Ballroom during APA's 2005 annual meeting.

The featured attraction is a Cannes Film Festival winner, “The Son's Room,” an intimate portrayal of a psychoanalyst grappling with grief and loss and its impact on both his family and psychiatry practice. The film will be followed by a discussion moderated by Steven Hyler, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. Light refreshments will be served.

The film, released by Miramax, won Best Picture at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and received critical acclaim worldwide.

“`The Son's Room,' presented in Italian with English subtitles, is a particularly appropriate and compelling work for an international audience of psychiatrists,” said Altha J. Stewart, M.D., president of the American Psychiatric Foundation.

Hyler worked closely with the foundation to develop the Psychiatry Film Fest. “Psychiatrists are an ongoing subject of fascination in films and television from the `Silence of the Lambs' to `Ordinary People' to the `Sopranos,'” said Hyler. “I am so pleased to be able to bring this film to the APA annual meeting, particularly because as a foreign film, it was shown on a more limited basis.”

Commented Stewart, “With its focus on the experience of loss by a psychiatrist, the film probes important questions about the interrelationship between the personal life of a psychiatrist and its impact on his or her practice. The foundation is very pleased to expand its program in 2005 to offer this special evening, as it presents a unique avenue for accomplishing the foundation's educational mission.”

The Psychiatry Film Fest is supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Pfizer Inc. ▪