And Now,
Love

And Now, Love is the story of Dr. Bernard W. Bail, a highly decorated Jewish World War II hero who was shot down over Nazi Germany. Imprisoned in a German hospital, he began a clandestine relationship with his nurse, Irmgard, who introduced him to a spiritual love unlike any he had experienced — a love that became the guiding light for his life and career.

Determined to understand why this pure love is so often unattainable, he became a doctor and psychoanalyst who revolutionized the psychoanalytic process with a new theory called the Mother's Imprint — an idea that strikes at the root of mental illness. Bail posited that we live impressed by this imprint: the unresolved feelings a mother carries about herself, passed down in utero from generation to generation, the result of centuries of female oppression that cut us off from pure love and our true potential.

Though the psychoanalytic establishment tried to censure him for moving beyond traditional Freudian methods, Bail pressed forward with courage and dedication, formulating a new paradigm to help his patients. His conviction in the link between social progress and the oppression women have suffered made him a lifelong feminist who believed that if the world is to know peace, women must lead the way.

In her documentary, filmmaker Jill Demby chronicles Bail's journey from a Philadelphia immigrant neighborhood, across the skies of war-torn Europe, and through psychoanalytic institutes resistant to new ideas. Interviews with Dr. Bail, experts in psychology and neuroscience, and testimonials from patients paint an indelible portrait of his courage, compassion, and single-minded purpose. As renowned child psychiatrist Dr. Gilbert Kliman put it, Bail was an avant-garde thinker who introduced the world not to the illusion of love, but to real love.

For more on Dr. Bernard Bail and to purchase his books The Mother's Signature and Irmgard's Flute, visit bernardbailmd.com.