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.  

Este evento é co-patrocinado pelo Greater Kansas City e pelo Topeka Psychoanalytic Center.