Author: sgissy2000

Phone Calls and Car Rides is a youth-made film that captures youth grappling with mental illness from a few different angles. This short drama addresses the way mental health crises break up families, the way people gossip about it in a small town, and the way the adults in the teenage protagonist’s life are looking for signs that he won’t end up like his father, who recently returned home from a mental hospital. The performances really make or break a grittily realistic dramatic short like this and they are strong all across the board. Set in 2008 during the housing crisis, economic collapse is also present in the background as a metaphor for the havoc that mental health can wreak on the social community of the American family and town. 

In Phone Calls and Car Rides, the young writer and director Josh Whiteaker taps into adolescent feelings and nostalgic Americana in an authentic love letter to the classic coming-of-age film, with a mental health twist.

Phone Calls and Car Rides  plays Friday evening, 10/9, at Mental Filmness.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/mental-filmness-54312030423

The German short film No Time is a bleak and foreboding picture of aging, loneliness, and the mental health of caregivers. I actually admire the way the film doesn’t shy away from, but instead leans into, all of the incredibly depressing details of willing yourself to live when you’re close to death.

No Time was written by Jens-Uwe Bahr and is directed by Jackie Gillies. On a technical level, everything about the film works. It has a strong script and performances, and confident direction focusing on subtle images with a devastating impact. It has an unusual cast of characters, including an elderly woman living alone and the caretaker who is her only link left to socialization and the outside world.

I appreciated that No Time showed the mental health strain on both the elder and the caregiver. I won’t lie to you, this one is brutal in its realism, and realistic in having the courage to say that no, things don’t always get better. I cried, but I loved it for its honesty. Elder loneliness and mental health is such an important and overlooked topic, and this film gives it the seriousness and the weight it deserves.   

No Time plays Friday evening, 10/9, at Mental Filmness.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/mental-filmness-54312030423      

The strain of becoming an unexpected caregiver on mental health and marriage is an important topic that’s hard to get just right, but I feel like the dramatic short film I Don’t Care has a delicate balance of sadness and humor that nails it. The performances are pitch-perfect, and the script also demonstrates a level of realism and vulnerability that seems very authentic. For instance, it is very, very hard to open up in a support group of strangers at first. The stories in the support group felt true to the ones I’ve heard, and they manage to convey a lot of nuanced conflicting feelings about caring for family, especially if they never really cared for you.

Like in many support groups, this one comes to life when it gets real. People bond over some of their most shameful thoughts. Strangers are able to open up about a particular type of stress that felt inappropriate to share with people in their life who wouldn’t understand. Getting real means real talk about not just caregiver burnout, but resentment at honeymoons being cut short. This short film, written by Mike Nielsen and directed by Jay Guffey, creates empathy through the ugly thoughts, and sometimes that’s a beautiful thing.

I Don’t Care plays Friday evening, 10/9, at Mental Filmness.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/mental-filmness-54312030423 

They Call This Healing is an incredibly accomplished student short from New Zealand. It nails a unique presentation of mental illness I’ve seen in real life, but seldom on film. It stands out for its clever writing and a fresh, youthful feel that provides a welcome levity to balance out some of the other films about mental health. The performances are impressive, especially the lead, who feels magnetizing and authentic.

It’s never specified and I’m not sure what mental health disorder the young woman in this film has, but I’ve definitely seen it in real life. I’ve met people just like this character who talk incessantly about the movies they’ve made and their upcoming award dinners, all while never having owned a camera. Major congratulations to Promise Akindeju for making a short film that takes whatever condition this young woman is living with and finds the quirky humor in it while still taking it seriously in discussions with her roommate and therapist.

They Call This Healing plays Friday evening, 10/9, at Mental Filmness.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-filmness-film-festival-tickets-2000057532921

The stunning and unique animation of Small Hours was painted by hand, using oil on glass, by the artist Oscar Wyndham Lewis. He said that “the process of painting and wiping away each image felt like an honest reflection of recovery itself: fragile, repetitive and full of moments of loss and renewal.” What a meticulous process, whose rapid fluidity and change make a vibrant and beautiful visual metaphor for recovery from depression and addiction.

Another thing to admire about Small Hours is the corresponding narration to the animation, and how strong and professional the voice acting sounds, starring Robert Bathurst of Downtown Abbey. The visuals and narrative about wistful thoughts stemming from depression and alcoholism combine to tell a story that is ultimately about reaching out for a connection during our bleakest moments. I feel like this film has the potential to be that connection to some people.

Small Hours plays Friday evening, 10/9, at Mental Filmness.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/mental-filmness-54312030423 

Mental Filmness has been blessed with the gift of creative animation over the years. We receive submissions that feature old-school, hand-drawn, 2D art techniques that are laboriously animated for the screen. We also receive, and have featured, some vibrant and impressive animation styles utilizing cutting-edge digital and AI tools. The short film Wings, created by the architect and illustrator Zeynep Cabuk from Turkey, is a stunning blend of these techniques. Wings dazzles the eye with colorful watercolor illustrations that are animated with digital motion tools. The resulting impact is that of a fluid and living pop-up children’s storybook with rolling paper-cut skies and waves, a perfect blend of old and new techniques in visual storytelling.

Wings uses abstract art and sensory perception as a way to enter the world of a child living with autism. Zeynep’s goal was to  “explore the spatial and sensory world of autism through the language of architecture—squares, spirals, and patterns—to bridge the gap between isolation and connection.” Beautiful watercolor illustration, a soothing, accepting vocal delivery, and a peaceful lullaby-esque score all help this short about living on the autism spectrum shine. I think it captures the message of neurodivergence and perceiving the world differently in such a way that it could relate to many mental health disorders. One of the things our jury members loved about it was its sense of resilience, one of them insightfully saying that rather than just highlighting the struggles of a neurodivergent child, it gives the child a joyous journey of hope.

You can see Wings opening night, 10/9, at Mental Filmness!

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-filmness-film-festival-tickets-2000057532921

Mental Filmness has seen a big uptick in films about men’s mental health in the last few years. Talk To Somebody is a short film about black men’s mental health and therapy. It’s difficult to make a good film about a therapy session but with sharp writing, vulnerable acting, and thought-provoking subject matter, Talk To Somebody succeeds. It’s a realistic and empathetic portrayal of a court-mandated therapy session where a therapist breaks through to a client by getting real about his own troubled past. It sounds like a concept that could be done in a cheesy TV-movie way, which makes it all the more impressive that it feels more like a powerful one-act play.

Talk To Somebody was written by Jamal Akakpo, a Ghanaian-American filmmaker and actor from Chicago. I sensed this was a film made by a Chicagoan or someone with Chicago roots, where racial tension, crime, and mental health form a vicious cycle. Talk To Somebody shows the possibility of breaking that cycle, and I think it will play well in Chicago.               

Talk To Somebody plays Friday evening, 10/9, at Mental Filmness.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/o/mental-filmness-54312030423 

Throwing Fruit is a comedic short film about intrusive thoughts associated with OCD. It’s front-loaded with a lot of madcap bawdy humor, but what affected me the most about this short was the last five minutes. The film ends with a tender and real conversation between long-time friends about how having inappropriate thoughts doesn’t mean you’re going to act on them, or that you even want to act on them. The ending to this film might actually contain both the best explanation and the best compassionate response to intrusive thoughts I’ve ever seen. 

I found the first part of this film to be a little frenzied and uncomfortable at times, but I think that is necessary to help the audience picture themselves in the narrator’s shoes. Colorful physical manifestations of intrusive thoughts help draw the viewer into the story and relate to an experience that feels a little odd and scary, but that is ultimately embraced and validated in the end as a manageable mental condition. The film is semi-autobiographical and based on the experiences of the brave and talented UK-based comedienne Rachel Baker, who wrote and starred in it. Rachel did an impressive job balancing humor and hope with depicting the lived reality of a mental illness.

You can see Throwing Fruit on the opening night of the Mental Filmness film festival, 10/9.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-filmness-film-festival-tickets-2000057532921

It’s funny the trends we see in any given Mental Filmness year. This year we received two films from women about coping with intrusive thoughts associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Both featured some madcap raunchy humor, and both had some wildly creative ways of visually depicting intrusive thoughts for the audience.

The short film Dialectic was made by the intrepid 22-year-old Emily Sugar, who impressively used 2D animation and collage to convey the anxiety and panic of intrusive thoughts. Among these questions are the ever-persistent 1) Does having this thought mean I’m disturbingly abnormal? and 2) Can I voice this thought aloud, or is it so abnormal that others will judge me?

One of the brilliant things about Dialectic is it tests the limits of these questions within the relatively safe universe of making a possibly off-color minor social gaffe with a friend. The character in this film experiences a spiral of guilt and shame for an intrusive thought she has after she makes a humorous anatomical observation about her friend’s pet. In a brief animated frenzy she cycles through scolding herself for having a crass thought, validating the truth behind the thought, and weighing whether the thought is actually a little funny after all and socially appropriate to share in this context. To a certain extent, all of us can probably relate to struggling with an inner voice over whether expressing a thought would be appropriate at any given time. This helps make the story relatable to viewers who may have experienced a much less extreme version of the intrusive thoughts presented here.

Dialectic is a great Mental Filmness film for a few different reasons. It has the fun, energetic, and DIY artistic style of a gifted youth filmmaker personifying something empathetic and real about mental health. It also adds a little levity to a serious issue, and invites viewers to revisit times when they’ve struggled with their own potentially inappropriate thoughts and what people will think of them. You can see it Friday evening, 10/9, at the Mental Filmness film festival.

Get your free tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-filmness-film-festival-tickets-2000057532921

While we’ve had quite a few Chicago filmmakers featured over the last few years, Mental Filmness still screens films about mental health from all over the world. One of my favorite things about the festival has been learning about different cultural interpretations of mental health.

Occasionally we receive a truly unique cultural gem like L’Audition, directed by KERE Kayaba Anaïs Irma from Burkina Faso. In this short film from West Africa, a woman living with autism aspires to sing in a musical audition. On her way to the audition, she is discouraged by the outside world as bystanders mock her social differences. However, L’Audition ends on what is ultimately a hopeful note when this brave character persists through social barriers to channel her inner voice.

L’Audition realistically depicts the daily struggle of a neurodivergent individual to navigate the world in a visceral, sensory way that will resonate with any audience member. It also shows how the steadfast support of a family member with patience and understanding, as the brother is depicted in this film, can help smooth the social waters. Finally, it highlights how the unique talents and abilities of those living on the spectrum, when given a chance and some breathing room, can shine.

Where else would you be able to see a cultural gem like L’Audition in Chicago, other than in the Mental Filmness film festival? You can catch it Friday evening, 10/9, in the 8:30-9:30 short films block.

Get your free tickets at Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-filmness-film-festival-tickets-2000057532921