79 minutes – Documentary, mental health
Language: English
Festival release date: September 27, 2022 – Calgary International Film Festival
Release date: May 11, 2023
Production company: Voice Pictures
Canadian distributor: Voice Pictures

Insanity is both a personal POV documentary about director Wendy Hill-Tout’s and her family’s experience with her brother Bruce, who had schizophrenia and disappeared over 25 years ago. It’s also a look at the country’s mental health crisis, with shocking numbers of people suffering from mental health issues in jails, the justice system, and in the streets – and being shot by police. Bruce had a normal childhood, but in his 20s he began to change. At one point he ended up in Florida, eating out of garbage cans, when he was picked up by police and brought to a hospital. It was the first time the family found out Bruce had an illness – schizophrenia. Years later, Bruce disappeared again, but this time it seemed to be forever. His family never saw him again. Insanity is a plea to do better as a society – to treat those with a mental illness as human beings and provide appropriate services. Insanity was shot while searching for Bruce unfolds on the streets of Vancouver.