V13

“A complex portrait of the impossible profession at a vertiginous moment in history, Richard Ledes’s film, V13,asks whether the talking cure can also cure society’s ills. Shot in luscious black-and-white, select locations in today’s Bronx stand in for turn-of-the-century Vienna, where Sigmund Freud (Alan Cummings) is confronted with a troubling new patient–a young man (Liam Aiken) tormented by his own hatred of Jews. Set against a background of rising fascism, we are given a startlingly modern vision of Freud, sensitive and wise beyond any patient’s wildest dreams. This ambitious and thoughtful film resonates with the concerns of today.”

— Leslie Camhi, cultural critic and historian of psychoanalysis

“V13 is dense, intense and impactful. It is full of important questions regarding the history of psychoanalysis, political history of the 20th century and the political moment through which the world is now passing.”

— Betty Fuks, author of the book, Freud and the Invention of Jewishness

“I found V13 quite absorbing—more like a night at the theater than a movie experience, but a very good theater experience.(Paradoxically, the most “cinematic” moments seem to be those that show the psychoanalysis taking place in a theater.”

— Jonathan Rosenbaum, American film critic and author

“There are films that prod at the intellect, others that wrestle with moral complexity, and then there’s V13,… The film doesn’t so much invite you in as it does hurl you headlong into the dense terrain of psychoanalysis, history, and philosophical inquiry,  a kind of cinematic fever dream where time is porous, and the spectres of the past peer out with unsettling relevance.”

- Filmthreat.com Tom Atkinson