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One of the ways for society to reflect on itself is to study mental health. For example, philosopher Michel Foucault used the history of psychiatric disorders for his studies of evolution of societies. In a similar way life has played it’s cards with us too – taught us to learn about the borders of what is supposed to be ‘normal’ and what not through experience with two of our best childhood friends and artists (unfortunately one did suicide, other was forced to quit his artistic career) both who were treated as ‘not normal’ in our society. As a platform for this film we chose ‘bipolar disorder’s aspect. But we want to stress that the film is not about the disease or disorder but rather about the existentialism, meaning of life and art, brotherhood and today’s ‘zeitgeist’. Bipolarity is used as a ‘forceful’ lens to gaze through, as it helps to highlight and elevate the events. As filmmakers we believe we are competent enough to use bipolar disorder as a trigger for a story as many times we (all three brothers) have tried to help and gone through all the different states – from manic to depressive – with our close friends. Movie consists of small autobiographical events (sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, sometimes weird...) but somehow writing it... they all together made sense and pulled us into one big journey. “Troubled Minds” is a drama but hopefully full enough with elements of black comedy - as life itself. Title of the film in our opinion nicely defines the main idea - the search for the meaning of life in today’s ‘post-truth’ era where everyone lives and relies on their own reality - in the society where we might all in some way may be are crazy or ‘broken’ but try so hard to look ‘normal’. Visually we wanted to make this movie as a mix between highly artistic expressions of fiction film and feeling of ‘being there’ of a documentary. So that the mix would take the viewer into a journey of many realms. Visually we wanted to make a film that would be kind of a phantasmagoric, kaleidoscopic cinematic trip..
Country: Latvia
T-Port Partner: Baltic Pitching Forum
Webpage: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6947060/
Bio: Lauris Abele and Raitis Abele are Latvian filmmakers, born and residing in Riga. Lauris has obtained Masters degree in Audio-Visual Arts (film directing) at Latvian Academy of Culture and Bachelor's degree in Humanitarian Sciences (philosophy) at University of Latvia. Raitis Abele has obtained Masters degree as a Clinical psychologist at University of Latvia and studied film art at New York Film Academy. Together with his brother Marcis Abele (director of photography) they work on films, music videos and surrealistic art projects. As film artists brothers focuses on existential problems of today and expressions using strong visual elements.
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