A Drive Through the Heart of Darkness

Review of ‘The Trial of Ratko Mladic’, directed by Henry Singer, and Robert Miller, showing in ‘London Human Rights Watch Film Festival’ 13–22 March 2019, https://ff.hrw.org/london by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York The Trial of Ratko Mladic begins on 22 November 2017 in The Hague, just as the world is anticipating a […]

Read More…

The Poetry of Addiction: Review of ‘Wherever you are-Ovunque Proteggemi’, Directed by Bonifacio Angius, Italy 2018

Showing in ‘Cinema made in Italy 2019’ London Saturday 2nd March, https://www.british-italian.org/cinema-made-in-italy-2019/ Written by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell Medicine ‘Wherever You Are’ is a new Italian film that portrays addiction along with its usual weight of bleak antecedents and consequences, including dependency, conflict, depression and the collateral suffering of family members. But this alternately […]

Read More…

Let’s NOT Talk About Death: Review of ‘Euforia’, Directed by Valeria Golino, Italy 2018

Showing in ‘Cinema made in Italy 2019’, London, https://www.british-italian.org/cinema-made-in-italy-2019/. Review by Dr Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent ‘Euphoria’ is defined as ‘a feeling or state of intense excitement and happiness’. The word originates from the 17th century when it described well-being produced in a sick person by the use of drugs. In her second […]

Read More…

Cinema Bellissimo: Italian Cinema in London 2019

Review by Dr Khalid Ali, film and media correspondent Italian cinema has always had a special place in world cinema; the neo-realist wave of film-making led by directors Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, and Roberto Rossellini told stories of the Italian working-class facing poverty, social injustice and oppression. Classic films like ‘The bicycle thief’ (Vittorio De […]

Read More…

“Life Can Only Be Understood Backwards; But It Must Be Lived Forwards”: Review of Mystic River

Review of Mystic River, USA 2003, directed by Clint Eastwood. Review by Franco Ferrarini, gastroenterologist and film reviewer. Review contains plot spoilers. Based on the eponymous 2001 novel by Dennis Lehane, “Mystic River” is one of the darkest and probably best of Clint Eastwood movies. The story might be well known to those who read […]

Read More…

Wings

Today’s guest blog post comes from Rebecca Marshall who has just graduated from UCL Medical School having intercalated in Global Health. She is currently undertaking an MSc in Medical Anthropology (also at UCL). Her main interests include the intersections between medical anthropology, global health and bioethics. Here she writes about Wings, a recent play showing a […]

Read More…

Transcending boundaries and checkpoints

Muhi- Generally Temporary (By A Thread), directed by Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander and Tamir Elterman, London Human Rights Watch Film Festival, Barbican, 11 and 12 March 2018 We present a guest review by Professor Robert Abrams, Weill Cornell University, New York. The film will screen in both Toronto and New York. In the opening scene of Muhi- […]

Read More…

Two Sides of the Same Coin

Le Feu Follet (Louis Malle, France, 1963), and Oslo, August 31st (Joachim Trier, Norway, 2011) Reviewed by Dr Nadeem Akhtar, Assistant Professor in Psychiatry, McMaster University Resilience has become an increasingly prevalent term in the world of psychiatry to understand what keeps people well. The developmental psychologist, Emmy Werner, first used the term in the […]

Read More…

Reproduction on Film

By Anna McFarlane This special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science, entitled ‘Reproduction on Film’, is a rich seme for those of us in the medical humanities with interests in history and representation (whether through literature, film, or any other medium). The articles gathered here investigate the two-way influence between medicine […]

Read More…