Head Cold, with Berlin Filmmaker Gamma Bak Screens at ATA

Berlin filmmaker Gamma Bak will be on hand for an intimate screening of her documentary Head Cold (2010 Berlinale premiere) at 8pm, Friday, March 11, 2011 at Artists’ Television Acess, 992 Valencia Street in San Francisco. Through exposing video diaries which began prior to, and continued after, her diagnosis with psychosis in the 90s, Bak offers us a rarely seen glimpse into her own crisis, treatment and life with psychotic breakdowns, infused with interviews and video letters from friends – and, a separated Jewish Hungarian family who became refugees in Germany and Canada. Bak’s historical perspective as part of the Eastern/Central European diaspora is compounded by her living in West Berlin while commuting to East Berlin to be with her boyfriend, and echoes her own search for home and identity in a world of conflicting and contrasting realities. The film is a direct testimony of emancipation from the stigma of being schizophrenic. The screening of Head Cold will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Gamma Bak and artist and activist Jacks McNamara of the Icarus Project. Jacks was recently featured in Bay Area Filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal’s poetic documentary Crooked Beauty. $6- $10 donation at the door, ATA (415)824-3890.