Micro-course: Documentary, Mental Health & Wellbeing: Global Perspectives Through Film
Price £55
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Documentary, Mental Health & Wellbeing: Global Perspectives Through Film
This session brings together films & discussions to examine how psychological life, healing practices, and experiences of distress are represented on screen.
We will discuss key themes including institutional structures of care, lived experiences of stigma, experimental and therapeutic film practices, global understandings of wellbeing, and the intimate ethics of filming mental health.
WHAT: One-day session course exploring documentary representations of mental health, wellbeing, therapy, coping mechanisms and the diverse filmic strategies used to convey psychological experience. Examined through global films, readings, and discussions.
WHERE: In Person, UCL East, Stratford, London.
WHO: Run by Jasminka Letzas, a lecturer, artist and researcher working at the intersection of visual culture, moving image and psychotherapy.
WHEN: 1-6 PM, Saturday, the 13th June 2026. (with a break)
COMMITMENT: 1 Saturday afternoon – with 2 hours of preparation.
WHAT YOU GET: To meet a cohort of others interested in documentary & mental wellbeing, to engage with a seminar-style discussion, close film analysis, and critical engagement with interdisciplinary writing on mental health and documentary practice.
HOW MUCH: ÂŁ55
DEADLINE TO SIGN UP: Rolling basis, please sign up as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
AGES: 18+
BURSARIES: As this is a one-off session, we are not offering bursaries on this course.
***IMPORTANT***
Before the session, please watch the documentary Grey Gardens (01:35:00)
GREY GARDENS: (HD documentary, 1975)
Indication of themes/ideas discussed:
Dysfunction, Performance & Domestic Space
Film: *Grey Gardens* (Albert and David Maysles, 1976, USA, 95 mins)
A motherâdaughter duo living in near-isolation becomes the subject of a deeply complex portrait of eccentricity, containment, and emotional entanglement.
Themes: domestic space and mental health; performativity; intimacy in ethnography; archive, camp and cult documentary traditions.
Community, Care & Everyday Resilience
Film: *On the Adamant* (Nicolas Philibert, 2023, France, 110 mins)
A floating day-care centre on the Seine becomes the setting for a gentle, profoundly human portrait of psychiatric community life. We explore notions of relational care, everyday therapeutic encounters, and Philibertâs observational style.
Themes: contemporary mental health support; relationality; soft observational methods; ethics of proximity.
Image Credit: Still from Grey Gardens (1975)
What is UCLâs section of Public Anthropology?
Public Anthropology is a subsection of UCLâs Anthropology department. It hosts the short course programme, Open City Documentary Festival, and several graduate degree programmes.
The two main strands within Public Anthropology are media and creative and collaborative enterprise, which both merge industry expertise with academic research agendas.
Graduate degree programmes based in the Public Anthropology section include:
Public Anthropology houses Londonâs global non-fiction film festival, Open City Documentary Festival. Open City Documentary Festival produces an annual film festival, the bi-annual journal Non-Fiction and screening projects throughout the year.
Public Anthropology runs short courses in filmmaking, audio, virtual reality, film theory, practical camera training and film editing.
Tutors
Jasminka Letzas
Session Leader
Having trained at Central Saint Martins and the National Film and Television School, Jasminka has worked in Digital Design and Video production for over a decade.
She has written and directed many short independent dramas and video work which have been screened at international festivals in the UK and abroad. Current projects include a collaboration with Paul Colbeck, with whom she co-founded the popup cinema KELLERKINO, and a collaboration with Allenomis, Glasgow.
Jasminka is also an experienced hypnotherapist.