Please join Vista Del Mar for a private screening of the documentary film
OUTSIDER
followed by a panel discussion. Narrated by Gary Gulman, this powerful 40-minute documentary about Maury Ornest portrays his private battle with schizoaffective disorder, the impact it had on his family, and how making art saved Maury and gave meaning to his struggles with mental illness. The panel will include: Laura Ornest, Stephen R. Marder, M.D., and Schelsey Mahammadie-Sabet.
About the Film
What distinguishes OUTSIDER is the opportunity to visualize his inner life. OUTSIDER chronicles Maury’s life story, from his wondrous Southern California childhood – loved and adored within a prominent family – through college and 3 years as a pro baseball player. Described by those who knew him, Maury was one of a kind – charismatic, funny, outgoing, and attractive. He had a blessed life, he belonged. An insider. However, in his early twenties, struck by the onset of schizoaffective disorder, his life derailed. He had to face a different kind of life. In his reclusive solitude, Maury discovered something that would bring him not only relief from torment but also great joy and passion. He began painting and drawing.
Sadly, however, while he was alive, he never achieved his goal of showing his art in the world. After Maury died from heart disease at the age of 58, his sister Laura found 1400 paintings and thousands of journal writings in his Beverly Hills home and storage units. This body of work is the foundation of OUTSIDER.
Laura Ornest and her husband Rick Leslie hope that the film will foster awareness of mental illnesses and greater understanding and compassion, not only for those who suffer from these challenging conditions, but also for their families. By encouraging discussion, they hope to help people realize that they are not alone.
The Panelists
Stephen R. Marder, M.D. is a Professor of Psychiatry, and the Director of the Section on Psychosis at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He is also the Director of the VISN 22 Mental Illness Research, Education Clinical Center (MIRECC) for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dr. Marder’s research has focused on improving the lives of individuals with psychotic disorders, particularly schizophrenia. His research — supported by the VA, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, and the National Institute of Mental Health — has focused on the development of pharmacological, psychosocial, and rehabilitation approaches for improving functioning and quality of life. Dr. Marder has received the Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Stanley Dean Research Award of the American College of Psychiatry, the Alexander Gralnick Award from the American Psychiatric Association, the Kempf Award from the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychiatric Association Award for Research, the Wayne Fenton Award for Outstanding Clinical Care from the Schizophrenia Bulletin, and the Lieber Prize for Schizophrenia Research.
Laura Ornest is an award-winning television and radio reporter and producer who is committed to fighting the stigma that is so often associated with mental illness. Born in Edmonton, Canada, she grew up in Vancouver and Beverly Hills, where she graduated from Beverly Hills High School. She spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris before earning a BA in French from UCLA. After graduation, she worked as assistant general manager for the Vancouver Canadians, a triple-A baseball team, and then began her broadcasting career at CKNW, a talk radio station in Vancouver. After a year at CKNW, Ornest in 1983 became the first female TV sportscaster in western Canada when CBC Television hired her to host the 11 p.m. nightly sportscast and a weekend sports show. In 1985, she returned to Los Angeles and became a freelance TV news reporter for Channel 9 and ESPN. She also produced shows for E! network, CNN and CBS before returning to radio, her first love. For more than two decades, she worked as a local Los Angeles news reporter for AM stations KFWB (980) and KNX (1070), where she earned several Golden Mic and Associated Press awards. She later did on-air feature interviews for Classical KUSC (91.5 FM). A passionate advocate for mental health services, she has served for many years as a board member of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles and Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. She recently co-produced “Mapping of the Mind,” a Jewish Women’s Theatre show about mental illness.
Schelsey Mahammadie-Sabet is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist with specialized training in Clinical Art Psychotherapy. She completed her training from Loyola Marymount University in 2021 and has since focused on therapeutic work with children, most recently at Vista Elementary School. In addition to her work as a therapist, Schelsey curates art exhibitions at the Chinatown gallery Leiminspace which she founded. She developed a great interest in exploring the therapeutic properties of art during her time working closely with Leiminspace artists on their solo shows. As a therapist, she looks at the art process as a dynamic relationship between the artwork and the client which allows the client to externalize, inspect, and articulate aspects of their internal world. Schelsey is especially passionate about collaborating with clients to develop individualized media for their art expressions. Such explorations have led clients to express themselves with crackers, sticks, mud, butterflies, and legos. Though she works primarily with children, she asserts that art-making can be made accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds.
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