French filmmaker Alexis Lloyd (30 Beats) takes the audience inside a therapy group in his new movie, Group – The Schopenheuer Project, about a newcomer who joins a group and shares his intention to write a TV series based on his experience. The movie blends scripted arcs, improvised dialogue, and the presence of an actual psychoanalyst.
“This, of course, doesn’t sit well with members of the group who have shared secrets, fantasies, laughter, and tears,” highlights a synopsis of the film, which is inspired by Irvin D. Yalom’s novel The Schopenhauer Cure and world premieres at the Naples International Film Festival in Florida on Friday. The fest promises a “riveting, illuminating, and voyeuristic feature.”
Writer and director Lloyd optioned the book and shot it with an ensemble of actors who got detailed backstories for their characters and core narrative beats, along with the freedom to improvise dialogue.
The cast is made up of Teresa Avia Lim, Ezra Barnes, Bernardo Cubria, Gabriela Kohen, Elisha Lawson, Cara Ronzetti, Thomas Sadoski, Lucy Walters, and Dr. Elliot Zeisel, the one non-actor in the room, who uses the name Dr. Ezra Herzfeld, or simply “Doc,” in the film. His role was to provide real-world experience in the art of psychoanalysis and its practice, meaning that Lloyd asked him not to act.
The film was produced by Ronald Guttman, Jack Lechner, Lloyd, Molly Conners, and Alex Spatt.
“When I first encountered Yalom’s novel, I felt there was a unique territory for cinema there: raw, unpredictable, profoundly human,” said Lloyd. “Group therapy exposes fears, desires, and conflicts that no traditional screenplay can fully capture. My ambition was to transmit that intensity, humor, and sometimes emotional truths with complete authenticity.”
Now, Group – The Schopenhauer Project has a trailer, which gives a first look “behind the scenes” of group therapy sessions and the conflicts that threaten to come up from beneath the surface after the arrival of the newcomer.
