Whole | |
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Directed by | Melody Gilbert |
Produced by | Melody Gilbert |
Cinematography | Melody Gilbert |
Edited by | Charlie Gerszewski |
Music by | CXR |
Distributed by | Sundance Channel |
Release date |
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Running time | 56 minutes |
Language | English |
Whole is a documentary about people with a body integrity identity disorder, that makes them desire to be an amputee (medical term: apotemnophilia). It first was broadcast on the Sundance Channel in 2004.
The documentary examines the lives of several individuals who have body integrity identity disorder. They believe that they are supposed to have a sensory or physical disability, with some amputating a limb in order to achieve this. Some of the individuals are identified using their whole name, while others give only their first.
Referring to themselves as ″amputee wannabees″, the individuals portrayed by Gilbert find different ways of coping with their apotemnophilia. George Boyer shot his own leg off, while Kevin had a healthy leg amputated by a surgeon. Besides that mental health professionals, including Michael First, an academic psychiatrist at Columbia University, speak about their professional experience with this paraphilia. [1]
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Whole had its official premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival in June 2003. [2] It went on to screen at several other film festivals, including the Calgary International Film Festival, the San Francisco IndieFest, the Florida Film Festival and the Wisconsin Film Festival, [3] before it was picked up by the Sundance Channel, which screened the documentary on May 17, 2004. [4]
The Austin Chronicle gave the film 3/5 stars, writing " Gilbert’s film takes a wide-eyed and nonmorbid approach to her subjects, and the film is sure to become required viewing among psychiatry residents during their medical training." [5]
Carl Elliott from Slate is of the opinion that Gilbert made a sensitive film, allowing amputee wannabes to speak for themselves. The viewers are confronted with the struggles, people who are obsessed to become amputees go through, as they care confronted with their strange desire. [1]
Robert Koehler from Variety states that the great achievement of the film is, to cast a light on this "ultra-dark corner of the medical avant-garde" and to get both subjects as well as experts to talk about this rare medical and psychiatric condition. [6]
Amputation is the removal of a limb by trauma, medical illness, or surgery. As a surgical measure, it is used to control pain or a disease process in the affected limb, such as malignancy or gangrene. In some cases, it is carried out on individuals as a preventive surgery for such problems. A special case is that of congenital amputation, a congenital disorder, where fetal limbs have been cut off by constrictive bands. In some countries, judicial amputation is currently used to punish people who commit crimes. Amputation has also been used as a tactic in war and acts of terrorism; it may also occur as a war injury. In some cultures and religions, minor amputations or mutilations are considered a ritual accomplishment. When done by a person, the person executing the amputation is an amputator. The oldest evidence of this practice comes from a skeleton found buried in Liang Tebo cave, East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo dating back to at least 31,000 years ago, where it was done when the amputee was a young child.
In medicine, a prosthesis, or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through physical trauma, disease, or a condition present at birth. Prostheses are intended to restore the normal functions of the missing body part. Amputee rehabilitation is primarily coordinated by a physiatrist as part of an inter-disciplinary team consisting of physiatrists, prosthetists, nurses, physical therapists, and occupational therapists. Prostheses can be created by hand or with computer-aided design (CAD), a software interface that helps creators design and analyze the creation with computer-generated 2-D and 3-D graphics as well as analysis and optimization tools.
Body integrity dysphoria (BID), also referred to as body integrity identity disorder (BIID), amputee identity disorder or xenomelia, and formerly called apotemnophilia, is a rare mental disorder characterized by a desire to have a sensory or physical disability or feeling discomfort with being able-bodied, beginning in early adolescence and resulting in harmful consequences. BID appears to be related to somatoparaphrenia. People with this condition may refer to themselves as transabled.
Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a distinguished professor in UCSD's Department of Psychology, where he is the director of the Center for Brain and Cognition.
Acrotomophilia is a paraphilia in which an individual expresses strong sexual interest in amputees. It is a counterpart to apotemnophilia, the desire to be an amputee.
Kirby Bryan Dick is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor best known for directing documentary films. He received Academy Award nominations for Best Documentary Feature for directing Twist of Faith (2005) and The Invisible War (2012). He has also received numerous awards from film festivals, including the Sundance Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival.
John Ronald Brown was an American surgeon who was convicted of second-degree murder after the death of a 79-year-old patient in his care.
Attraction to disability is a sexualised interest in the appearance, sensation and experience of disability. It may extend from normal human sexuality into a type of sexual fetishism. Sexologically, the pathological end of the attraction tends to be classified as a paraphilia. Other researchers have approached it as a form of identity disorder. The most common interests are towards amputations, prosthesis, and crutches. As a sexual fetish, attraction to disability is known as devotism, and those with the fetish are known as devotees.
A disability pretender is a subculture term meaning a person who behaves as if they were disabled. It may be classified as a type of factitious disorder or as a medical fetishism.
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Be Like Others: The Story of Transgendered Young Women Living in Iran is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Tanaz Eshaghian about trans people in Iran. It explores issues of gender and sexual identity while following the personal stories of some of the patients at a Tehran gender reassignment clinic. The film played at the Sundance Film Festival and the Berlin International Film Festival, winning three awards.
Yvonne Welbon is an American independent film director, producer, and screenwriter based in Chicago. She is known for her films, Living with Pride:Ruth C. Ellis @ 100 (1999), Sisters in Cinema (2003), and Monique (1992).
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Paul McGeoch is an American neuroscientist, known primarily for his work in apotemnophilia and neuro-based weight loss.
Boys State is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine. It follows a thousand teenage boys attending Boys State in Texas, coming to build a representative government from the ground up.
Jeff Bourns is an American amputee tennis player who helped pioneer the growth and development of Adaptive Standing Tennis.