Outsider Documentary Screening & Panel Discussion (with Beit T’shuva)

Join Beit T’Shuvah and IKAR for an exclusive screening of the award-winning 40 minute documentary, Outsider, followed by a panel discussion with clinicians, clergy, and mental health advocates featured in the film. Refreshments and art exhibition to follow.

About the Film: After Maury Ornest died at age 58 from heart disease, his sister, Laura Ornest, discovered 1,400 original paintings in his home studio and multiple storage units, along with thousands of pages of journals.

Outsider recounts the story of a gifted baseball player whose lifelong battle with severe schizoaffective disorder began with a psychotic break in his early twenties. Through Maury’s drawings and vibrant, whimsical paintings, interviews with family members, and extensive reflections in his thousands of pages of journals (voiced by actor/author Gary Gulman), Outsider demonstrates the deep loneliness that can burden those with serious mental illness when thoughts and emotions are out of one’s control. Outsider also reveals the many challenges faced by caregivers and family members when their loved ones’ behaviors can be volatile, disturbing and hard to predict. Outsider shows us how the power of creative expression can sustain one’s humanity.