Mental Filmness

I’d like to give a huge thanks and appreciation for those involved in our final event of the year on 11/22 during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week. Thank you to Ivan Sanchez for originally connecting us to Doug Shaffer, he is such a kind and gracious guest. Thank you to the Chicago Public Library’s Disability Pride Committee for generously sponsoring another Mental Filmness screening to support and spread awareness of mental health disabilities. Thank you to producer Douglas Shaffer for taking time out of his busy schedule to come out on a fairly quick turnaround to screen the film 5000 Blankets and engage the audience in discussion about the importance of recognizing and addressing mental health conditions and homelessness as well as the filmmaking process in general. Huge thanks as well goes to filmmaker and Mental Filmness jury member Nick Chirico for his help in calmly and competently working through some tech issues, the staff of the Albany Park branch library for hosting us and also doing some troubleshooting with the room and loaning A/V equipment, and for local storyteller and advocate Dave Scott for telling his own story about his experience with homelessness to engage the audience and help smooth things over (as well as sharing some valuable resources from his experience). This was truly a team effort from a caring community!

We actually had a decent turnout and probably most importantly (other than people bringing snacks and candy), the audience members who could stay later were very engaged in the discussion. People talked about resources and possible solutions to these problems, some from lived-experience perspectives, and some were curious about the filmmaking process itself. Thanks for making the last Mental Filmness event of the year a truly warm and memorable experience!

Did you know the week of November 16-22 is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness week?

From the Hunger and Homeless Awareness (hh week) website: “As the holidays approach, people take time to consider what they’re thankful for and many choose to donate some of their time, attention, and resources to others. In that spirit of giving, each year the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness sponsor Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week during the week prior to Thanksgiving.

Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is designed to educate the public, draw attention to the problem of poverty, and build up the base of volunteers and supporters for local anti-poverty agencies. Groups spend this week generating publicity about hunger and homelessness and holding a series of events to engage their communities.”

Come see 5000 Blankets Movie this weekend, November 22nd, @ the Albany Park branch of the Chicago Public Library, with producer Douglas Shaffer in person, to spread awareness of the connection between homelessness and mental health (and check out more ways to get involved at hhweek.org). If you’d like to bring a blanket to donate to organizations working with the homeless, feel free (but it’s not a requirement). #hhweek

Time for the last interview of the virtual festival! Our inimitable jury member and fellow L.A. filmmaker Danielle Gibson was the perfect interviewer for Regina Oliver, writer-director-producer-star and general powerhouse behind the short film Always Enough. And though our virtual festival has wrapped, it is clear that the creative team behind Always Enough really wants it to be seen far and wide and that there will be more opportunities to do so, so please keep an eye on its future at ttps://www.instagram.com/alwaysenoughfilm.

The visually compelling and inspirational Always Enough uses surreal visual imagery that I agree is reminiscent of David Lynch, though that makes sense if it originally came from a dream. Though experimental, the film conveys a message of self-acceptance quite clearly. It reminds me of something a therapist used to tell me about some of my most regrettable and shameful actions: “Maybe you were doing the best you could at the time.” Maybe doing the best we can at the time and under the circumstances, including during the times that we struggle with our self-worth and other mental health challenges, is always enough.

This Is A Sad Story appeared in the festival a little later and so does our interview, but you should seek this film out any way you can if you didn’t catch it. It stands out as a truly unique Mental Fillmness entry in that it explores sadness in a more absurdist existentialist way, and it crackles with the energetic wit and creativity of youth in the way that only a youth-made film can. I will be keeping an eye on emerging filmmaker Nuno Abreu to see what he does next, because he definitely has a knack for snappily written dialogue and dry humor without sacrificing the warmth of a sunset or peer support.

Mental Filmness jury gem Beatrice Wong has also become a stellar interviewer. I love her use of split screen, fades, and the dreamy music by Yuhang which gives it all a meditative tone. She also uses a skill I sometimes lack: she is succinct! At a tight eleven minutes, I’ll bet you have time to watch this charming conversation about youth and representing the nature of sadness in a fresh way—and you certainly should.

This coming week, November 16-22, is Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week in Chicago. You can find events near you at hhweek.org for fundraising for anti-poverty organizations, collecting food and toiletries, and more.

Mental Filmness will be partnering once again with the Chicago Public Library’s Disability Pride Committee to host a screening of the film 5000 Blankets, with producer Douglas Shaffer in person. The screening will take place at the Albany Park branch of the Chicago Public Library on November 22nd at 2 p.m., and will feature an optional blanket drive (last time I said this, and we still received a *ton* of blankets to give to organizations that work with the homeless! Chicago is very generous). Based on the true story of a man who had a mental breakdown and went missing in the streets, and the family that went to search for him, this film explores the intersection of mental health and homelessness.

Please join us on November 22nd for our very special final event of the year.

Although the virtual festival has wrapped up, it’s still well worth watching this brief 14-minute conversation between Beatrice Wong and Niels Fiegerslev. Even if you didn’t catch the short film Forever Dying in the festival, this interview touches upon the importance of the mental health implications of health anixety. This is a topic, as Beatrice and Niels point out, that has only grown more relevant since post-COVID and that is probably relatable to many people to varying degrees of severity. Forever Dying—featuring a man panicking in a doctor’s waiting room about a cartoonishly grotesque boil growing out of his neck–shows how one’s anxiety can color reality, and how physical symptoms are often tied to our mental health. If you want to treat the manifestation, as the doctor in the film says, you must first treat the underlying condition, no matter what form that might take.

Enjoy!

We still have a few more wonderful interviews rolling in from the festival this week, but now is the moment everyone has been waiting for—the results of the awards for the 2025 FINAL Mental Filmness virtual festival!

Yes, awards are kind of silly, and I hope no one takes them *too* seriously. Everyone should be very proud they were selected, as we had a large amount of quality entries and an incredible array of judges.

Once again, awards are decided by tallying the votes viewers cast on their virtual ballots (which Eventive does automatically), and then taking the top scorers and giving them an award based on the film that was the most empathetic, the most realistic, or the most stigma-breaking film. (This seems a little arbitrary as well but somehow it always seems to work out). 

I am proud to say that out of a couple hundred virtual ballots cast, these are the results:

The Next Step (dir. Nora Guicheney) is a fairly straightforward documentary, but it obviously struck a chord with many audience members as it was one of the most highly rated films of the 2025 virtual festival. I chalk this up partly to the film’s unique and overlooked subject matter, that of the decision to wean off medication and become pregnant when living with bipolar disorder. The other part is undoubtedly the nakedly honest, brave, and personal story and narration by director Nora Guicheney. Nora leaves in the hard parts, including arguments with her mother and partner about her choice to conceive and her memories of psychosis, while still allowing room for the quiet, gentle parts of exploring her familial identity through letters, photos, and reflections. The end result is a brief but ponderous film that reveals Nora’s next step. For its candor as well as its integration of natural conversations, we’d like to honor The Next Step with the Realism Award for showing a difficult decision for one living with a mental illness with unflinching realness.

I had a feeling Stay (dir. Nick Ceulemans) would resonate with the audience as well as it did with our jury. The story of a woman with an ambiguous mental illness and the partner who becomes her caretaker, this film hits upon our universal need to want to be loved even when we are at our most unlovable. Having been the mentally ill person in such a relationship, I related to and did a lot of the things the character in this film did, including lying, abusing medication, and other self-destructive acts, yet my partner at the time somehow loved and tolerated me anyway, and we even had warm and funny moments, so I can vouch for the accuracy of this portrayal. And spoiler alert, that ending is a real tearjerker. Due to its portrait of someone living with a mental illness who is flawed but still in a loving relationship, and its interesting exploration of how far that love can be pushed to its limits, Stay is awarded the Empathy Award for investing the audience’s feelings in the future of both of these characters and their relationship in a surprisingly scant running time. 

Finally, I believe Common Law (dir. Kagah Goh) firmly belongs in the Stigma Breaker category. A film about a rarely mentioned or discussed, yet immensely important, topic, Common Law tackles the difficulty and red tape surrounding getting disability benefits when you live with a chronic mental illness, and are receiving some support from a partner or family members. Based on the true story of what happened to writer-director Kagan Goh, Common Law also tackles stigma against speaking openly about mental illness in Canadian-Asian families and culture. Kagan certainly walks the walk in real lifee as the “bipolar laureate” of Vancouver, helping spread mental health awareness and support and highlighting the artistic achievements of those who live with mental illness. It’s incredible how far Kagan has come as a filmmaker since we first screened his short film The Day My Cat Saved My Life, about a man in the midst of a psychotic break who is grounded and brought back to Earth by the touch of his cat. Common Law is a brave, personal, and incredibly realistic and nuanced film about some of the very specific challenges of living with manic depression.

Thank you to all the amazing submissions we received, I’m always a bit blown away by the variety and the diversity. Thank you for being a part of the special final *virtual* festival (the live one will continue, so stay tuned). 

Hello all!

I promise this is what I intend to be the final post about the festival finale, and I will stop spamming your feed/inbox if you follow Mental Filmness in any subscription-type capacity.

Tomorrow I will announce voting results, so get all your votes in for the virtual festival and check back for that. Tomorrow I will probably say this again and elaborate on it a bit more, but this is the last year I intend to host a *virtual* festival. It was born out of necessity during the pandemic, and it has always been a bit of a logistical challenge to balance it with physical events once we started bringing those back. More than anything else I’ve just realized these kinds of films work much better with a conversation live in a room, and anything I’ve tried to replicate that in the virtual festival just hasn’t worked as well. What that means is hopefully more *live* screenings in the future.

Finally, I think we have touched upon all the films in the festival in some way except for one that I saved for last, which is Technical Fault. Technical Fault is a really incredible experimental short about a very important topic, the intersection between homelessness and mental health. Following the narration of an artist experiencing homelessness and borderline personality order, the film moves between animation and reality, between everyday life and memory in his work. The reflexive, poetic perspective opens up impressive insights into the realities of homeless and mentally ill people – and thus makes an important contribution to social understanding. It’s much better seen than described, so you should watch it in the next few hours here: Technical Fault | Shorts Block No. 1 | Mental Filmness 2025 Virtual Festival

The reason why I touched upon this topic is it dovetails with another *live* program in Chicago that will be happening November 22nd. We are once again partnering with the Disability Pride Committee of the Chicago Public Library to host a screening of Doug Shaffer’s 5000 Blankets, which is about the very relevant and timely topic of homelessness and mental health, during the season where it is most needed. See attached flyer below. Please attend if you can!

And enjoy the *final* final eve of the Mental Filmness virtual festival! Thank you for all your support!

Remember, this is the LAST night to watch films from the Mental Filmness virtual festival, and I am just going to highlight a couple more *short* films that you definitely have time to watch before it closes. And remember to get in those votes! We will definitely tally them up and post results.

As someone recently searching for medical care, I have heard the phrase “health anxiety” bandied around a lot. Hypochondria, fear of finding something medically wrong with you, or fear of death are all so common now as to have their own terminology. What Niels Fiegerslev’s Forever Dying touches upon so well is how physical and mental health tie together. Sometimes we almost *want* something to be wrong with us physically, so it can explain some more deep-rooted psychological problems.

Forever Dying has elements of dark comedy in its main subject becoming increasingly anxious in a sterile waiting room to see a doctor, while a mysterious boil grows on him. In the clever way it ties physical and mental health together, this character’s anxiety presents as nothing to be overly concerned about to the other patients and the doctor. My favorite part of this metaphor comes in the end though, where I feel the film delivers its ultimate message from the doctor: if you don’t treat the underlying condition itself, the outward manifestation of it won’t go away.

There’s still time to watch Forever Dying in Shorts Block No. 2, and to VOTE by 10 p.m. Central tonight! Forever Dying | Shorts Block No. 2 | Mental Filmness 2025 Virtual Festival