A Long History of Madness

Directed by Mieke Bal

If your mentally ill patient dies, are you to blame? For Dr Françoise Davoine, Parisian psychoanalyst, this question becomes disturbingly real as one of her patients, Ariste, dies. Davoine is abducted and put on trial by mediaeval fools and through the course of one hellish day - across several centuries and countries - must argue her case for exoneration. As the journey forces Dr Davoine to question her own life, via a mix of fiction, documentary and theory, A Long History of Madness takes the viewer on a one-of-a-kind journey into the minds of the ‘mad’ and those designated to cure them.