States of Mind: Minders: Whose Mind is It Anyway?
​(1995) BBC Two England / Director: Lorraine Heggessey

​Screened Thursday 13th August 2020, 7pm.
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‘‘The film follows the story of John Baptiste’s sectioning and detainment under the Mental Health Act. John is a young black man who believes he was born white, that he has blue hair, and that he is related to the Queen. He seems to manage alright in his own flat, and has never harmed or threatened anyone. Yet his Community Mental Health Team believe his mental health is ’deteriorating’ and as such is forcibly removed from his home to a psychiatric hospital. What follows is a bitter struggle between John and his care team who seek to forcibly treat John against his wishes to resolve what they believe are ‘inappropriate beliefs’.

At two points in the film we will pause and talk about it for a little while. Its politics, its frustrations and patterns. We won’t see you, you won’t see us, we will simply write to each other. This can be a brave space in which you share your own experiences, ask questions you were afraid to ask, type in all caps and be ANGRY, share resources or songs, or simply say your piece. We just ask you to gently consider the feelings and possible experiences of everyone who join us.

Accessibility:
Tonight will be an interrupted screening. We will be screening a 60 minutes long film with two interruptions of 15 minutes each and leave some more time to chat at the end of the film. We are trying to create a space where everybody can feed safe and brave to share their own experiences, ask questions and exchange ides/resources while considering the feelings and possible experiences of all those joining. We estimate that we will be finishing around 9pm (BST).
Tonight's event it free and will be taking place online via the platform Metastream. You will need a good internet connection and one device, either computer, laptop, tablet or Chromebook (smartphones are not supported unfortunately). You do not need to open an account in this platform, but you will need to provide a name/nickname to enter the streaming room and the written text-only chat. We recommend using Firefox or Chrome browsers which may require that you install an extension, and to avoid Safari as Metastream does not support it.

The film we will be screening tonight it not audio-described, and there are no captions/subtitles available in the copy we got access to this time. We are also not planning to record the session or the written discussion on the chat. We are still learning how to make our gatherings. If you have any suggestions for how we can improve, please let us know at [email protected], and we'll do our best to accommodate, this time and in future"