WALDOBORO — The historic Waldo Theatre, in Waldoboro, is honored to announce the Maine premiere of Outsider on Thursday, Aug. 15, at 5:30 p.m. Outsider, a 40 minute award-winning documentary, addresses both the tragedy and redemption that can result from mental illness. This complex landscape becomes personal as we learn about Maury Ornest, whose life encompassed baseball, schizoaffective disorder and art. Directed by Ted Haimes and produced by Ted Haimes and  Nicole Lucas Haimes, Outsider won the Audience Award for best short at Montclair Film Festival.

After Maury died at age 58 from heart disease, his sister Laura discovered 1,400 original paintings in his home studio and multiple storage units, along with thousands of pages of journals. Outsider recounts the story of a gifted baseball player whose lifelong battle with severe schizoaffective disorder began with a psychotic break in his early twenties.

Through Maury’s drawings and vibrant, whimsical paintings, interviews with family members, and extensive reflections in his thousands of pages of journals (voiced by actor/author Gary Gulman), Outsider demonstrates the power of creative expression to sustain one’s humanity. The film demonstrates the deep loneliness that can burden those with serious mental illness when thoughts and emotions are out of one’s control. Outsider also reveals the many challenges faced by caregivers and family members when their loved ones’ behaviors can be volatile, disturbing and hard to predict.

We will invite the audience to engage with a panel of extraordinary people whose work and mission is to provide healing, hope and connection to the community.

There will be a panel and discussion after the film; the panel includes:  

Moderator Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH – Founder and President, The Foundation for Art & Healing; Project Unlonely; faculty member, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; physician internal medicine; public health practitioner; award-winning poet.

Eric Meyer, LCSW, MBA – President and CEO of Spurwink, a nationally accredited nonprofit organization that provides a broad range of behavioral health care, substance use disorder services and support services for people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds, and their families in Maine.

Cynthia Sortwell, MD -  Portland psychiatrist/psychoanalyst; clinical associate professor of psychiatry, Tufts School of Medicine and Maine Medical Center.

Laura Ornest -  member of the advisory board of UCLA Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior; board member of Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, Los Angeles; retired radio journalist, summer resident of Maine, and, most important, Maury’s sister.

“I think Outsider is the most powerful short film I’ve yet seen on the loneliness of serious mental illness and the power of creative expression and the arts to enable those affected to maintain their humanity,” says Jeremy Nobel, MD, MPH. 

Doors open at 5 p.m. The screening begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be followed by a panel discussion and conversation with the audience. After the conversation, the audience is invited for a reception in the Waldo Art Gallery, where Maury’s art will be exhibited and sold, and where resources will be available to support families navigating the challenges of serious mental illness.

Admission is free.

Partners: Spurwink and Project Unlonely

All proceeds from art sales will benefit the Waldo Theatre and Spurwink.