The Movie Monday Archive

For 26 1/2 years Movie Monday was the best deal in town. Every Monday our Victoria BC psychiatric hospital’s 100 seat auditorium became a movie theatre to show an eclectic selection of films, carefully curated and often including guests and interactive discussions. It was always by donation and refreshments were very affordable.

It was the dream, and quickly became the passion, of Bruce Saunders who spent time “upstairs” as a patient. He lives with a bipolar condition.

It started out simply to fill a need for an affordable and welcoming venue for his peers to enjoy a film, but soon became known and acclaimed as both a mental health outreach model and reliably well-chosen entertainment series.

Mixed in with entertainment were a good number of films about mental illness and other challenges, and as Bruce discovered, they were a powerful way of opening conversations about those difficult subjects. Those topics are the basis of the most interesting filmed stories.

In this archive you’ll find a record of all the Monday events 1993 to 2020, posters for special events, Reel Madness Film Festivals, Psychiatric Grand Rounds presentations, photos of the venue, guests and fun we had. You’ll find print media articles, awards and bouquets, videos and photos of some typical events.

And writings; thoughts from a person living with a mental illness working on the edge of the formal mental health system.