Cancelled – PROJECTIONS: Unconscious

This session will focus on representations of the unspoken psychological life in films directed by women. 

Film has long been a male-dominated industry, but for decades female directors against all odds have made an indelible mark on cinema. Today there is growing recognition of the important contributions made by women to the world of moving image, with audiences calling for more opportunities to be given to female screenwriters, cinematographers, editors, producers, performers and directors in a bid to defeat gender inequality.

This four-part intensive PROJECTIONS course is dedicated to identifying psychoanalytic themes contained in films directed by women. In sections planned around UNCONSCIOUS, IDENTITY, EROS/THANATOS and PSYCHOPATHOLOGY, we will explore cinematic representations of memory, dream logic, the death drive, jouissance, the double, sexuality and mental illness. Through psychoanalytic engagement, we will place a special focus on the feminine experience portrayed in stories told by women, and collectively discuss the ways in which cinema can evolve in order to more authentically depict female desire, fears and subjectivity.

There is the option to book the whole course or individual sections, see parts 2. IDENTITY, 3. EROS/THANATOS, and 4. PSYCHOPATHOLOGY 

Please see below the full list of films to be discussed; advance viewing is optional, select scenes and montages will be shown on the day.

Part 1. UNCONSCIOUS (31 May 2019)
Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012), Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943), The Party (Sally Potter, 2017), Pet Semetary (Mary Lambert, 1989), Most Beautiful Island (Ana Asensio, 2017), In the Cut (Jane Campion, 2003)

9.30am – open
10.00am – first session
12.00pm – lunch
12.45pm – second session
2.45pm – tea break
3.00pm – third session
5.00pm – finish

Tea and coffee will be provided during both breaks. Please note: there is no cafe on site, however, you are welcome to bring your own lunch, which can be consumed in the classroom, or the Museum garden if the weather is fine.

PROJECTIONS is psychoanalysis for film interpretation. PROJECTIONS empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary – the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.