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!