Some Mental Filmness audience members might remember Hayley Nash from her film Make Up Your Mind, which played in the virtual festival a few years ago. Make Up Your Mind was a creative sci-fi film with a brilliant conceit: if you could trade your mentally ill (or otherwise defective) brain in for a new one, would you?
As a returning filmmaker, the film that Hayley entered into the year’s festival, Don’t Fail, is much different, while still retaining her characteristic feminist lens experimenting with unconventional ways of depicting mental health. A primary tenet of Don’t Fail seems to be show, don’t tell: the character’s struggles with obsessive-compulsive disorder (or OCD) during a female weightlifting competition are communicated through the lead character’s repetitive actions, the lighting, and the buzzing in the sound design. My conversation with Hayley was fascinating because I know nothing about the world of female weightlifting competition, and due to her experience with both that sport and OCD she is able to elaborate upon it in a detailed and eloquent way. Hayley touches upon the pressure to be perfect in fields like academics and sports, and how that can exacerbate OCD—so it can be helpful to know when to ground yourself or step away. Overall, Don’t Fail is a tense portrait of someone in the midst of a stressful achievement, meant to communicate that feeling to the viewer, and it is a sometimes uncomfortable but riveting watch.
Check out the Mental Filmness interview with Hayley Nash below, and make sure to watch Don’t Fail while it is still streaming for FREE in the virtual festival for the next week: Don’t Fail | Mental Filmness 2025
Cast your virtual ballot, and let us know what YOU think!