The film Jonathan’s Return examines the experience of a man diagnosed with schizophrenia as a young adult, as he migrates between various institutional and national contexts: growing up as a teenager in the United States; serving in the Israeli Army; returning to the United States to secure treatment; and (hopefully) retaining a sense of community there. At each point along the way, one can see how different cultural frameworks inform the young man’s experience. In Israel, his break was treated with a military suspicion; in the North American city, the odyssey of place-based diagnostic practices continued. At the time of documentary shooting, Jonathan began to move out of seclusion into the community with a raw, unresolved sense of identity.
