Watching it all from the back of the bus was Stosh Mintek, the 37-year-old chief executive of Ghetto Film School, an immersive high school film program that sponsored the London students’ trip to Los Angeles. G. F. S. , as it is often called, has been around since 2000, when it was established as an after-school summer program in the Bronx aimed at minority students. It has developed into a 30-month curriculum with programs in New York, Los Angeles and London. Fellows receive 1,000 hours of instruction in screenwriting, film production, animation and movie history.
As junior doctors who work on acute inpatient psychiatric wards, serious mental illness is our daily reality. We have, therefore, watched the controversies around Todd Phillips’s Joker – in which Joaquin Phoenix plays a troubled loner who turns to violence – with professional interest. The film’s dominance in the debate about portrayals of mental illness in the movies comes at a curious time. Recently, we’ve witnessed great leaps of awareness about relatively common mental-health issues such as depression and anxiety, and with that awareness, increasing dismissal of the sort of unhelpful prejudices that used to surround them.