The Recovery Channel
Ellen Ugelstad / Norway / 2023 / International Premiere / 103 min
A filmmaker who has been set back by her own brother's decades-long battle with the mental health system, invents a fictional TV channel to expose the injustices of modern psychiatric treatment.
What does our care for seriously ill people tell us about the rest of society? Over the past few years, there has been a massive renewed focus on psychiatry in the media and the public sphere, but for Norwegian filmmaker Ellen Ugelstad, that is not enough. Her own brother has been stuck in a lifelong treatment programme with no end in sight. In an act of creative protest, she invents the fictional TV channel The Recovery Channel headed by news anchor Randi Isaksen. The channel is an experimental, open project with room for innovative conversations about mental health. But it also provides an opportunity to rethink the rights of psychiatric patients – and perhaps to rediscover their humanity? An original and urgent contribution to a debate that can only provide food for thought.