USA: Mad To Be Normal To Open San Francisco's Mostly British Film Festival



Mad To Be Normal starring David Tennant will be the opening film in the 2018 programme as The Mostly British Film Festival returns to San Francisco next month. Now in its tenth year, the festival runs from February 15-22 at the historic Vogue Theater in Sacramento Street and features twenty-five new and classic feature films and documentaries from the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India and, for the first time, Canada. This mix of classics, dramas, thrillers, biopics and stories based on historical events offers something for every film lover.

Mad To Be Normal
David Tennant gives a dazzling performance as Dr. RD Laing, the radical and controversial psychiatrist who became a 1960s counterculture hero for advocating for the mentally ill. One of Scotland’s greatest minds, Laing adopted humane holistic treatment for mental illness using as tools group therapy and communal healing, an approach that had an impact on mental health interventions around the world. Based on a book of the same title of conversations with Laing by the film’s writer and director Robert Mullan, the film is largely set at a refuge Laing set up at Kingsley Hall in East London. Elisabeth Moss co-stars as Laing’s fictional girlfriend Angie with Gabriel Byrne and Michael Gambon as two of the commune’s residents. 

Mad To Be Normal screens from 7.30pm on Thursday 15th February and will be introduced by local psychoanalyst Dr. Michael Guy Thompson, who joined Laing in 1973 to practice at one of the post-Kingsley Hall communities.

The Mostly British Film Festival will also include screenings of classic UK movies Alfie and A Taste Of Honey, the 2016 remake of Whisky Galore! and a personal appearance from Downton Abbey star Joanne Froggatt. The festival brochure is available here and tickets and festival passes offering priority seating will be on sale early January at the Vogue or at mostlybritish.org, cinemasf.com or by calling 415-346-2274.

For US fans who don't live anywhere near San Francisco, don't despair. Mad To Be Normal will be released on VOD from Friday 16th February in the USA. 


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