"Schizo is cleverly pitched, in astoundingly evocative opening and closing title cards, as a combination of cutting edge scientific reportage and speculative near-sci-fi related to the relativity of perception of space and time." – MUBI Notebook

Rarely screened since its release, Ricardo Bofill's utterly fascinating pseudo-documentary come science fiction piece – aptly subtitled "A Fictitious Report on the Architecture of the Brain" – imagines the insides of a frayed mind as living theatre, performed by five actors against a minimalist landscape and set to the rhythmic ravings of a schizophrenic.

Bofill, now a famous Catalonian architect, was the creator of the multidisciplinary arts movement Taller d'Arquitectura, and the influences of his collective of urbanists, architects, writers and filmmakers can be felt in Schizo's daring topography of the human brain – and by extension, contemporary Spanish society, with the film's allusions to the mental and political prisons that flourished in the era of Franco's rule. Interrogating the dynamic between art and madness through equal parts scientific speculation and outré psychodrama, this is a truly intriguing rarity not to be missed.

Print courtesy of Filmoteca de Catalunya