The 2026 Searching the Psyche Through Cinema film series explores the world of horror, inviting us to confront our deepest fears. The series wraps up with a screening and discussion of the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs (R, 118 minutes). 

The appeal of director Jonathan Demme’s work, writes a critic on RogerEbert.com, “is likely to last as long as there is a market for being scared … fear is a universal emotion and a timeless one.”  

Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster), a top student at the FBI training academy, seeks out psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), who’s serving life behind bars for murder and cannibalism. They develop a strange and strained relationship in a search for a serial killer. 

A post-screening discussion is led by GKCPI president and UMKC law professor Karl Menninger and animator and filmmaker Kaylea Halstead.  

Dit evenement wordt mede gesponsord door het Greater Kansas City en Topeka Psychoanalytic Center.