

Overview
One in five Americans is taking a psychiatric drug, including millions of children. Pharmaceutical companies have over-hyped the benefits of these drugs, while hiding the risks and severe side effects including physiological dependence. "Medicating Normal" explores what happens when for- profit medicine intersects with human beings in distress.
Top Cast
Dave Cope
Self
Brianna Cope
Self - Dave's Wife
Shalamar Fairweather
Self
Angie Peacock
Self
Rebecka Green
Self
Tabita Green
Self - Rebecka's Mom
Todd Green
Self - Rebecka's Dad
Ivan Jourdain
Self - Pharmacist, Ivan Pharmacy
Mary Neal Vieten
Self - Psychologist; Commander, US Navy (RC)
Allen J. Frances
Self - Chair, Dept. of Psychiatry, Duke Univ Med School
Anna Lembke
Self - Psychiatrist; Professor, Stanford Univ Med School
Robert Whitaker
Self - Journalist & Author
Key Film Crew
Production Stats
You May Also Like

New York cab and black car drivers are facing economic and emotional hardship in a city dominated by ride-share apps. As these long standing industries are decimated by economic and political forces, drivers are forced to cope or fight back.
Days of Black and Yellow

Filmmaker Tobias Hermansen has battled depression for years, facing moments of darkness that shaped his perspective on life. Through his struggles, he discovered the power of storytelling as both an escape and a means of self-expression. Now, he channels his personal experiences into powerful, deeply emotional films that illuminate mental health and human resilience, inspiring others through storytelling.
Hanging by a Thread
A look at the growing epidemic of suicide in the America. It looks at those effected by suicide and talks to people who have attempted suicide. It also talks to service professionals (EMT crews, workers at suicide hot-lines, and psychologists) who are attempting to confront this problem.
Suicide

An innovative and charismatic influencer is suddenly exiled from her community of creative partners and colleagues when she states an opinion that she did not know was “unacceptable” in their eyes.
Gothix

While investigating the suicide of Las Vegas Teenager Levi Presley, a filmmaker uncovers a story of a city with the highest suicide rate in the country, and a nation scrambling to bury decades of nuclear excess in a nearby mountain.
This Much We Know

In 1999, 11-year-old Nisha Platzer lost her older brother, Josh, to suicide. Twenty years later, her search for a specialized medical treatment leads her to the door of someone who was once exceptionally close to Josh. And so it is that she finally has the chance to truly know her brother through his chosen family. Captured over five years in which synchronicities continually manifested, Platzer’s documentation of these encounters gently asserts that both grieving and healing are meant to be communal experiences.
back home
Produced in 1967, this black and white film is an inmate's view of Daytop, a drug treatment centre on Staten Island, New York, where addicts learn to get along without drugs. Uncompromising, often brutal group therapy sessions are designed to shake loose the excuses a victim makes for himself. The people and situations shown are authentic; only one actor was employed. The results obtained at Daytop are regarded by some psychiatrists as a breakthrough.
The Circle

Journalist Dermi Azevedo has never stopped fighting for human rights and now, three decades after the end of the military dictatorship in Brazil, he's witnessing the return of those same practices.
Stunned, I Remain Alert

Interviews with former drug dealers, over-prescribing doctors and DEA agents uncover a shocking truth of the pharmaceutical industry’s plan to target opioid sales to an impoverished community.
Overdosed

Satan in the Suburbs tells the shocking story of a grisly ritualistic murder in the quiet bedroom community of Northport, Long Island in the summer of 1984. The killing, it soon emerged, was linked to a teen satanic cult. Perhaps more disturbing than the details of the murder itself was the revelation of a conspiracy of silence among the town's teenagers, many of whom had been aware of the, e killing in the two weeks before an anonymous call finally tipped off local police. 17- year-old Ricky Kasso was arrested and confessed to the crime; five days later, he hung himself in his holding cell. Kasso's friend Jimmy Troiano also. confessed, but was acquitted after jurors learned that he was beaten by local police. The murder shocked the local community and reverberated nationally, with some uninformed observers rushing to scapegoat rock music as the cause.
Satan in the Suburbs

200 young people under 25 have died in custody since 1992 in England and Wales. This is the story of three of them; young men who died behind bars - told by the people who knew them best, it explores the flaws in the system and the lapses in care that contributed to their deaths.
Dead Behind Bars
Following the death of Amina Filali, a 16 year-old girl who killed herself after she was allegedly forced to marry the man who raped her, a young woman carries a personal investigation into the representation and perception of rape in Morocco. Here rapists are offered to marry their victims as a means to save the "honour" of the family. By liberating the voices of these victims, 475 : Break the Silence gives an unprecedented view of family, the deceit of love, relationships, marriage and honour in urban deprived areas of a country seeking to find its identity between modernity and tradition.
Break the Silence

A homeless man with schizophrenia slowly embraces antipsychotic medication under Hawaii's only willing psychiatrist and a court mandate, while a man in recovery offers rare insight into mental illness as he fights to reclaim stability.
An Island of the Mind

Documentary film about Tony Halme, masculinity and populism. The film follows how Tony Halme created a mythical, highly masculine freestyle wrestling character, The Viking, who gained fame both in the ring and in the public eye and eventually became captivated by it. With his brash speeches, Halme fired the starting shot for the rise of the Finns Party. The voice of a forgotten section of the population, a protest against the ruling elite, were the building blocks of Halme's popularity. Halme's great popularity has served as a good example of a populist figure, admired within the deep ranks of the nation, who comes from outside the political elite and changes the direction of politics. Also, despite - or perhaps because of - his openly racist statements, he was part of changing the political climate in Finland to a more acrimonious one.
Viikinki
A popular science film about the creation of a new drug, from the moment a chemist determines, based on the composition of a substance, that it might have medicinal effects, to the moment it finds itself in the patient's hand


