Where: Various locations in downtown Toronto
When: October 27 – November 6, 2022
Cost: Please note that this year there are limited walk-up sales due to COVID-19 and advance online ticket booking is recommended. Reserve tickets at workmanarts.com/rendezvous-with-madness/box-office.
Details: Join Workman Arts in celebrating the 30th-anniversary edition of the Rendezvous With Madness Festival – the largest and longest-running arts festival in the world dedicated to the intersection of mental health and artistic expression.
The theme for the festival this year is “More than rebellion,” a statement which embodies the festival’s efforts to normalize informed public discourse around mental health, addiction, recovery, and wellness. More than rebellion means tearing down a broken system in favour of a generational change. This makes every artist featured at RWM 2022 a rebel; they’ve looked at the world and deemed it lacking, so they’ve used their art to hold society to a higher ideal.
The 2022 festival will present 13 feature films and two short programs – a total of 30 films from 15 countries – in a hybrid format of virtual and in-person screenings. In addition to this year’s robust film program, the festival includes its annual visual art exhibit – returning to a festival long in gallery format – Kind Renderings, and also features five live performance pieces.
2022 programming will be offered this year at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, the CAMH Auditorium, Workman Arts’ recent home at 651 Dufferin, the Workman Arts Gallery at Artscape Youngplace and at Comedy Bar. As always, films are complemented by thought-provoking post-screening Q&As and curated panel discussions, extending the uniquely meaningful conversations that define Rendezvous With Madness.
In this benchmark anniversary year, Rendezvous With Madness 2022 gets underway on October 27th at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema with the Canadian Premiere of the fearsomely candid documentary, How To Save A Dead Friend by Marusya Syroechkovskaya which first bowed at Switzerland’s Visions du Réel festival, where it received a special mention.
The festival closes this year with a screening of local artist Luke Galati’s debut feature-length documentary When We Reach Out: Who Will Respond? Born out of a tense interaction he had with police during a bipolar episode, Galati follows his own mental health journey and spotlights the work of the Toronto Community Crisis Service, a pilot service responding to mental health related calls, as an alternative to police service response.
More Info: workmanarts.com/rendezvous-with-madness @WorkmanArtsTO @workmanartsto