In an effort to show the work of more filmmakers who would like to screen live and speak about their films, and also in an effort to feature more programs throughout the year to continue to build and engage an audience, Mental Filmness is trying to present some more one-off programs in addition to the annual October festival. The Secrets Women Keep screening and performance on 4/6 was one such event.
Mental Filmness has continued to partner with the Chicago Public Library to host some of these screenings. This time the event was co-sponsored by the library’s Diversability and Women’s History Committees, and held at the Independence Branch Library.
Jessica Mathis (aka Divinity Rose) is a powerful advocate and multi-disciplinary artist whose collection of animated shorts Triggered garnered enough audience votes to land it the Realism Award in last year’s virtual festival. She is obviously passionate about speaking live when able to do so and visited to screen and engage in discussion about the film. Triggered is an animated collection of true recorded stories of women living with post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition most commonly associated with veterans. Each woman tells her personal story, including how the trauma developed, their triggers, and their coping mechanisms. Despite the heavy subject matter, the animations, music, and narrative choice to end on a note of survival and healing in each story overall make the film experience ultimately cathartic and hopeful.
Jessica has been working with the rising young comedienne Mandee McKelvey, so we were lucky enough to have Mandee on hand as well to give a performance as they were coming through town. Mandee does an incredible act on women’s body autonomy based on her personal experiences that is as informative and moving as it is hilarious. For Mandee’s library visit she performed part of her act that is more like a theatrical piece of storytelling, an unusual story about her irregular breast growth and how it impacted her adolescence and continues to impact her today after surgery. She has sometimes called this story “My Left Boob.” It went over very well, eliciting not only laughter, but women opening up afterward to tell their own stories about gender bias they’ve encountered in the medical field.
Jessica also showed a film from another emerging regional artist called Shane Devon. The short film, called iSwap, tells the story of young adults who can swap their bodies using a pair of glasses at a party for three hours. The body swap, which begins as a game and a prank, elicits a confession from one participant to his best friend that he felt like he was supposed to have been born into a girl’s body, and ends on the poignant note of her acceptance and support. I did not realize that we were the first audience treated to the premiere of this film, or that the filmmaker Shane Devon had recently identified and come out as transgender, both of which made it all the more special.
While I always wish there was a bit more of an audience for these events, I have to admit our audiences are the absolute best audiences. They are always attentive, empathetic, and insightful, so we must be doing something right. The discussion engaged in afterward had the majority-female audience opening up in a candid and vulnerable way about their own experiences and asking smart questions as usual. I was a little worried since this show contained some more mature content and controversial material that we might upset someone but the tenor of the conversation was always calm, intelligent, and respectful. Jessica and Mandee were also incredibly generous with their time. I know they both had shows and other pursuits this weekend but they stayed after their allotted time to answer questions, engage in discussion, and validate and connect with audience members. These two are the real deal, there for the real issues.
We call it the “secrets women keep” because the whole show was about issues women experience that they don’t talk about—because they’re ashamed, because they’re not validated, because they’re not believed. We got to talk about these issues on this one special day, but we need to try to keep talking about and spreading awareness of them. Check out triggerstories.com for the award-winning short by Jessica Mathis (aka Divinity Rose) and Onemandeeshow.com (acclaimed comedienne Mandee McKelvey) for more.
