Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities
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Imagining Robert |
Project Description
The video documentary, Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival, is the story of two brothers, Robert Neugeboren, mentally ill for 38 years and Jay Neugeboren, a prize-winning novelist who has been his brother's caretaker. Based on Jay's memoir Imagining Robert, the video documentary by Larry Hott and Florentine Films blends documentary, music, Jay's readings from his memoir, and Robert's poetry drawings, experimental films, and diary readings. The documentary provides occasions to draw together people involved with mental health—family members, medical personnel, patients, police—to explore the impact of chronic illness on families, the ways that police deal with mentally ill patients on the streets and in shelters and halfway houses, and how to challenge assumptions and perceptions about treatment, stigma, and delivery of services. Jay and Robert are participating in many of the local, statewide and national screenings/dialogues organized by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities with a range of mental health, legal, police, and community partners and in online dialogue opportunities. As mental illness gains ground as a national health issue, Imagining Robert seeks to increase dialogue about issues of mental health outside of a crisis situation and to provide insight into the most intimate personal and public dimensions of the issue.
