Press Release Lavarius, artist, musician and documentary film maker is showcasing his new film short “Crazy Diamond” at the Rendezvous With Madness Film Festival Nov. 9 –18, 2006. “Crazy Diamond” is Lavarius’s best film to date. He documents the story of John, an inpatient at CAM, who is inspired by the works of Pink Flloyd, when he learns their leader Syd Barrett also suffered from schizophrenia. John is determined to write his own songs fashioned after the legendary band. For the last 16 months he has been working at his new craft ten hours a day, five days a week and listens to Pink Flloyd, two hundred hours a month, to feed his creativity. To date, John has wrote 600 songs. He is called “Wordman" because he creates his songs by cutting out series of words from the newspaper each day and rearranging them into songs. This process has had an amazing impact on John’s struggle with mental health. Fundamentally it has been his way of coping with his mental illness. Dr. Doyle, an emergency psychiatrist at Credit Valley Hospital, Mississauga, who viewed the film said it is an extremely professional production that provides a human and revealing portrait of a unique character. Dr. Doyle said Lavarius has created an important film that shows how a brilliant, damaged mind, through his writing, is able to create new insights into art, creativity and the imagination vs. the real. Lavarius’s film shows Monday Nov.13th at l:30 p.m. at the Workman Theatre, 1001 Queen Street West.