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The Remarkable Response to our Documentary NCR: NOT CRIMINALLY RESPONSIBLE

When we began this project four years ago many Canadians thought NCR stood for National Cash Register.

Few knew what the term “Not Criminally Responsible”meant. Fewer still had ever laid eyes on people designated NCR, such as Sean Clifton (left).

For generations patients like Sean were hidden away in institutions called asylums for the criminally insane, now known as forensic psychiatric hospitals; but wehad gained unprecedented access to one, the Brockville Mental Health Centre (right).

Suddenly the NCR issue bust wide open. Stephen Harper introduced new legislation to control people like Sean

Clifton: the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act. Almost overnight NCR became an important national issue. An ugly backlash developed against people withmental illness who committed serious acts of violence -- and just as they became the most unpopular people in Canada, we released an empathetic film about them.

Suddenly we found ourselves in the eye of the hurricane with our film.

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“The Importance and greatness of NCR: Not Criminally Responsible” cannot be overstated.”

--the Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/documentary-takes-a-look-inside-the-perpetrators- experience/article14885202/#dashboard/follows/

“Stunning… a breakthrough film”--the Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2013/10/02/ncr_not_criminally_responsible_gets_new_life.html

The astonishing impactNCR: Not Criminally Responsible, from 4-time Emmy-winner John Kastner, on the legal, mental health, political communities and in the media.

of the

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gave him a standing

fact that he had

When Sean Clifton(far right) appeared at

a Toronto screening of the film the audience

ovation -- despite the

attempted to stab awoman to death.

Politicians from all 3 parties united in their praise of the film. A Liberal newspaper, the Toronto Star, used the screening to

attack Prime Minister Stephen Harper:http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2013/11/27/john_kastners_ncr_makes_unlikely_star_of_sean_clifton.html

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Laureen Harper, wife of the Prime Minister, met director Kastner at Rideau Hall at a mental health event.

Mrs. Harper asked to see the NCR documentary.

Kastner obliged.

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We don’t know if Mr. Harper watched the film, but his wife did.

She liked it.

The Senate considered screening the doc in conjunction with its 2nd reading of Bill C-14, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act.

But the Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee, Senator Bob Runciman, decided against a Senate screening: most Senators had already seen it.

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In the UK, the prestigious Guardian Weekly Magazine devoted 4 pages to the film although virtually no one there has seen it, outside of a few hundred souls at the Sheffield Documentary Festival!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jun/08/stabbing-a-moment- of-madness)

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film. The first --

The article was the most-read piece in the Guardian’s Society section for days.

The Toronto Star ran 4 separate stories on the

treated as a news story --ran on the front page.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2013/04/19/john_kastner_brings_ncr_not_crimina lly_responsible_to_hot_docs.html

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IMPACT: A Town’s Stunning Transformation:

The most dramatic media response to the film occurred inBrockville, where the hospital is located. The local newspaper, the Brockville Recorder, had begun to “out” forensic mental patient living in the community.

In this front page story two angry neighbours stand before a residence where a patient lives. Now everyone in the small town of Brockville knows where to

find him. An ugly backlash developed towards the many patients living in the community. They were terrified.

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Fearing an ugly scene the hospital did not allow patients to attend the NCR doc’s premiere in Brockville. Not even Clifton was

permitted to view his own story.

Link to story: http://www.recorder.ca/2012/12/20/released-killer-worries-neighbours

Reporter Ron Zajak wrote the original “outing” story. But when he attended the public screening of the film (along with the victims) he was shocked to find

the Brockville audience empathetic to Clifton:

“Think of it. Applause for a guy who plunged a knife multiple times into a woman…(and) sympathetic laughter…when that same woman is actually sitting

in the front row. “It’s a mark of a great piece of cinema when something like that can happen.” -- Ron Zajak’s blog

After the screening Zajak wrote 4 positive front-page stories in a row in the Brockville Recorder about the film and Sean

Clifton.

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“The change in the attitude of the locals was dramatic…their hostility towards the patients dissipated before our eyes…the hospital’s problems with the

community pretty much went away.”

Dr. John Bradford, Order of Canada, a psychiatrist from the Brockville Hospital and past president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law,

describing the effect of the screening on the angry community.

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Sean Clifton meets audience members at a Toronto screening of the documentary

Since the screening Clifton circulates freely in public without incident…unlike most NCR patients in Canada who often face an

outcry if they are spotted in public.

But when Clifton (centre left)

ventures out, he is invariably

greeted warmly by members of

the public.At one screening

he even got a standing ovation!

To date he has not encountered a single negative

reaction.

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Word has spread about the film’s remarkable success in de- stigmatizing sufferers of mental illness.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/2014/10/03/how_two_documentaries_changed_closed_minds.html

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The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, the world’s largest body of forensic psychiatrists, invited Kastner to share his de-

stigmatization secrets at its annual conference in Ft. Lauderdale.

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Religious bodies, too, discovered the de-stigmatizing powers of the film

Link to article: http://ucobserver.org/justice/2015/05/men_monsters/index.php

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An international yoga organization even built a 5-day forgiveness festival around Kastner’s two films, held on Paradise Island in the

Bahamas. Kastner, Andy and Noella Bouvier and Dr. Lisa Ramshaw, the films’ consultant, were brought down as speakers.

lawyer-husband Frank McArdle

Attorneys in

Ministry of the

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IMPACT: ON THE LEGAL COMMUNITY

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Beverley McLaughlin and her

praised the film at a public screening in Ottawa.

(She should know; she wrote the landmark Winko decision concerning the NCR legislation.)

Osgoode Hall Law school held two separate day- long symposia built around the film for judges, crowns and lawyers.

The film is used to train Crown

Ontario, by the

Attorney General.

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IMPACT: ON THE MENTAL HEALTH COMMUNITY

“Your film is one of the most powerful tools I have seen for educating people on this complex issue…I can’t thank you enough. I look forward to

seeing the next one and hope we can collaborate on spreading this great word.”

– Louise Bradley, President and CEO, Mental Health Commission of Canada

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“I believe it could help change a whole generation’s attitude towards sufferers, perhaps more than almost any film I have seen”.

– Dr. Ivan Silver, Vice President, Education, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – the largest hospital of its kind in Canada.

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NCR: Not Criminally Responsible: Principal Production Credits:

J.S. Kastner ProductionsIn co-production with National Film Board of Canada

and in association withCanadian Broadcasting Corporation

anddocumentary Channel

present

NCR: Not Criminally Responsible

Produced, Directed and Written ByJohn Kastner

ProducerDeborah Parks

Producer and Executive ProducerSilva Basmajian

EditorMichael Hannan

Directors of Photography John Westheuser CSC

Derek Rogers CSC

ComposerBruce Fowler

Location Sound RecordingDouglas Kaye

Supervising Sound Editor and Recording Mixer Stephen Barden

Associate ProducerNicole Rogers

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ConsultantsDr. Lisa Ramshaw

Dr. Hy Bloom

Production Executives for CBCMark Starowicz Michael Claydon

Creative Head documentary ChannelBruce Cowley

Produced with the participation of the ROGER’S DOCUMENTARY FUND.