Asylum – Stories from the John Meyer Ward

Asylum – Stories from the John Meyer Ward

An online screening of the short film John Meyer Ward followed by a discussion between psychiatrist, anthropologist and filmmaker Khaldoon Ahmed and writer and director Tina Gharavi.

Psychiatrist and filmmaker Khaldoon Ahmed retrieves the memories of the last doctors, nurses and patients of John Meyer Ward. This poetic film takes us into the emotional architecture of confinement and psychosis. In the midst of a place of turmoil and disturbance, we find camaraderie and sometimes kindness. The building was originally part of Springfield Asylum, built 1841, and demolished in 2018.

John Meyer was the first resident physician of Surrey County Lunatic Asylum, built in 1841. He was killed by a patient, and a psychiatric ward was named after him – the John Meyer Ward. This building was demolished in 2018. The psychiatric asylums of Britain were emptied of patients in the 1960s. They are now knocked down or converted into luxury apartments. This film is an assemblage of images, recalling the photographs of Bernd and Hilla Becher, and the sculptures of Rachel Whiteread. John Meyer Ward functioned as a psychiatric intensive care unit until it was shut down when a patient killed a member of staff. This poetic film conveys the complexity of how as a society we manage, treat, and sometimes fail the most disturbed. Past patients, nurses and psychiatrists recall what John Meyer Ward meant to them.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Speakers

Dr Khaldoon Ahmed is a consultant psychiatrist, anthropologist and filmmaker. He was born in London of Pakistani descent. Khaldoon studied medicine at University College London after which he trained at the London Film Academy. He works in inner city London for the NHS. Through his work, he became sensitised to people marginal to society because of exclusion or experience of mental illness. He was a Trustee of the Mental Fight Club, an arts and health charity, that launched the Dragon Cafe and ReCreate Psychiatry projects. Khaldoon teaches medical students, and supervises trainees in psychiatry and psychotherapy. He has published research in culture and health.

Tina Gharavi is a BAFTA and Sundance-nominated writer/director, focused on delivering authentic stories lensed with an impeccably wrought perspective. She was born in Tehran. Having worked in war zones and in guerrilla filmmaking, Gharavi marries her indomitable spirit with a distinct talent to deliver performances and beautifully observed stories. Her debut feature, I Am Nasrine, was nominated for a BAFTA and she is set to direct her third feature, Night & Day, a Virginia Woolf adaptation in 2024. Now a showrunner, Gharavi’s also engaged in development on her first TV series, Refurinn/The Fox, an Icelandic detective noir with an intriguing twist, exec produced by Nomadic Pictures (Fargo). She recently completed directing her first Netflix series, 4 episodes shot in Morocco: a hybrid drama-doc series, African Queens: Cleopatra, for Westbrook, exec produced by Jada Pickett-Smith. Gharavi is also an academic, teaching filmmaking around the world, and was awarded an MIT Fellowship. She was elected to the BAFTA Academy in 2017, is represented by Independent Talent in the UK and Gersh in Los Angeles, her two home bases. In her spare time, Tina dreams of becoming a beekeeper in Iran.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

£10 for Non-Members £8 for Members

Tickets are NON-REFUNDABLE

All registrants will receive the webinar link to join via Zoom. Attendees will also receive access to the reading and talk available in our On Demand archive via recording for (1) month.

Freud Museum Members and Patrons receive 20% off the standard ticket price on all events, courses, conferences and On Demand programming.

All proceeds from this event will go to the Freud Museum London which receives no regular government funding.