What Was It Like Making Boarding On Insanity? | AEM

What Was It Like Making Boarding On Insanity? | AEM #121 Ben Cole | | Piers Cross
Ben Cole is a film director, storyteller, cinematographer and all round filmmaker. His films include 1 Giant Leap with Robbie Williams and Time of The Sixth Sun.
Questions for Ben:
1. I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you now do?
2. What is the film Boarding On Insanity about?
3. What drew you to make it?
4. Please share your journey of making the film. How was it for you?
5. What were some of the highs in making this film?
6. What were some of the lows?
7. Could you please talk about the movement around boarding schools as a whole?
8. What's the vision of the film moving forward?
9. How can people support the release of the film? When is it coming out?
10. What is your call to action?
11. How do people find more about your work?
To find out more about Ben new film please visit: boardingoninsa...
And to watch the trailer: • Boarding On Insanity |...
#boardingoninsanity #gabormate #bencole #boardingschoolsyndrome #childhoodtrauma
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✅ Other Videos You Might Be Interested In Watching:
👉 Boarding School Syndrome Explained: Find Recovery & Hope with Joy Schaverien - AEM #10 | Piers Cross
• Boarding School Syndro...
👉 Overcoming Boarding School Trauma: Nick Duffell on Rebuilding Intimacy - AEM #21 | Piers Cross
• Overcoming Boarding Sc...
👉 Boarding School Trauma in Relationships: How to Love a Boarding School Survivor | Piers Cross
• Boarding School Trauma...
👉 Trauma Healing: The Power of Slowing Down and Self-Care | Piers Cross
• Trauma Healing: The Po...
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✅ About Piers Cross:
Piers is a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, complex PTSD, boarding school syndrome, addictions and relationship problems. He also runs online men's groups and runs a podcast called An Evolving Man.
For collaboration and business inquiries, please use the contact information below:
📩 Email: [e-mail]
🔔 Subscribe to my channel for more videos: / @pierscross
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© Piers Cross

[@LoneSeaEagleOfSkye]

Hi Ben and Piers, thankyou for your thoroughly enjoyable, moving and frank conversation.
Ben, I'm grateful that you shared how much your short time at boarding school has profoundly affected your life, and who you are now.
I was sent from my rough and tumble life as a " tomboy " roaming freely on a back-country farm to a " posh " girls' boarding school with all its strict rules and regulations, in the city at age 12, and had no choice but to stay there for three years.( I went on to board with relatives for my final school years .)
The only bullying I remember came from a particularly unpleasant maths teacher, who shamed me in front of the whole class for not being adept enough at solving some mathematical problem! ( I've had a mental blockage when it comes to maths ever since.)
Having to leave my beloved dog behind broke my heart. He died while I was at school and I was helpless to do anything about it.I also " grew away " from my four siblings and parents, developing a fiercely independent, survival personality. I was like a fish out of water living in the city, as I've always loved nature, mountains and open spaces. I like what you both say about emotional intelligence and the importance of relationship with others.
I love what you said at the very end Ben..." Being honest is the best way."
It's very clear to me that your upcoming documentary film is a true labour of love, and I trust that it will bear much good fruit, helping bring greater understanding and meaningful changes to the whole education system.
I've been browsing through some old Readers' Digest Magazines, and came across this quote by Ellen Goodman :
" Every generation finds it hard to hear what its children need - because its own childhood is still ringing in its ears."

[@biljanakocanovic6778]

Thanks a lot, all best!!!🙂

[@richardrickford3028]

This is a really good and really sensitive conversation between two very wise men. I warm to Ben tremendously. I want very much to check out some other of his films. Often the most important and innovative film makers are not nearly as well known as they should be because in the best possible way their films challenge and educate and raise hard and important questions instead of being romcoms or "popcorn blockbusters"
I think one thing that needs to happen with "Boarding on Insanity" is that people from continental Europe - from countries like France and Spain and Italy - should see it.
It is such a British situation that is being discussed in the film that we need the perspective of people who are a few steps back and perhaps can see things differently and more objectively. In a way we as the British are too close to our boarding schools to see them for what they really are. Its like fish not being very objective about water.
In this way we as a nation with our boarding schools and our sometimes repressed emotion could really learn something. Perhaps Piers you could send the movie to people on the continent and then interview them on the evolving man podcast to see what they make of it all.

[@richardrickford3028]

I feel a book or a film needs to be made on the subject of how far in the last twenty years or so have boarding schools have fundamentally changed.
One thing I can see happening is the very valid insights into boarding school made by this movie and in other places being pulled apart. Or people having a damn good try to. The boarding school establishment will either say people are misleadingly generalizing from their own personal experiences and/or are out of date with how boarding schools currently are. The other one is that it is inevitable when you have schools there will be loads of problems. It is unfair to pick on boarding schools in particular. This is also in the context of how really brilliant Boarding schools can be at marketing themselves. You only need to look at the commercials on their websites.
I don't think any of the criticisms I outlined in the last paragraph are true. But they need none the less to be addressed.
I remember a Russian commentator, who was selling British Boarding schools to a Russian audience on a RUclips film, going round one and saying "Well come on. This is hardly Charles Dickens now is it?" To this somewhat gaslighting phrase I would say there is material Charles Dickens and there is psychological Charles Dickens.
Boarding houses may have central heating and no rats scurrying round the dormitories but I think it is very possible many of them have massive psychological Charles Dickens issues. There is the alarmingly low ratio of staff members to pupils, the lonliness and the homesickness, and the 24/7 bullying that can go on.
Bullies are ingenious. Like a virus. You attack the problem from one direction and the bullying reclusters and carries on in another way. And the pupils being bullied cannot go home to parents and older brothers and sisters or pets and talk about it all and have a much needed break.
Texting your parents or even talking to them on zoom is in no way the same as actually seeing them. You cannot hug your parents on zoom. If anyone thinks this is a sentimental remark they have zero knowledge of what children as young mamelian primates actually biologically need.
The Russian commentator said "You know what? I have seen no unhappy face here". Of course he hadn't. Very probably there were deeply unhappy pupils who had learnt the hard way to mask their feelings.
So it would be good to do some research and do a book or and/or a movie about how much boarding schools really have changed. I hope it is something that someone like Nick Duffel or Joy Shaverian or Piers Cross would write about. Or film about As I said the boarding school establishment can be very clever and I think will try and gas light this whole film project as far as they can. They must not be allowed to. Young people's lives are at stake.

[@lemsip207]

I don't get the need for boarding schools now. Most families live within daily commuting distance of a suitable school. It's different if they live in the Outer Hebrides. In remote parts of Australia children were educated over a two way radio.
Elizabeth II and her sister were educated at home by private tutors. But she sent her own children to boarding schools from the age of eight.

[@richardrickford3028]

According to the Netflix series "The Crown" which I am aware is a drama entertainment rather than always having complete historical accuracy it was the Duke of Edinburgh who made sure Charles went to Gordonston. He was originally going to go to Eton which was still of course a boarding school but much closer to home and the Palace. He could have "popped over" and had some tea with his mother. Charles has described this place Gordonston as Colditz in kilts. The other male princes followed suit and went there too. You may ask why the Duke sent his sons there when he had been there himself and knew what the place was like. I think one of the answers is if he made a deliberate choice not to send Charles Andrew and Edward there then in doing so he would have to directly face how awful the place was and how much it had emotionally messed him up too. Much easier to simply carry on the cycle of abuse and not face the frightening emotions he had repressed about the place. This I think sums up why in many families there is a case of parents who have had abusive experiences in boarding school also sending their children there.

[@lemsip207]

@richardrickford3028 Yes I heard that the Queen had given into his choice to have sent their sons there. Eton would have been a far better choice.