Mental Filmness 2025 Virtual Festival Award Winners!

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).