The virtual festival is still up for one more week! That’s enough time to watch all of these films, and I will keep up our coverage of them, plus more interviews are coming down the pipeline (including this weekend).
The Serve is a masterful look into a psychological phenomenon (the “yips”) that I had never even heard of. In fact, mental health in athletics is an important topic that I’m surprised not many of our submissions have addressed. The main character in The Serve is a seasoned tennis player who has been praised for his mastery of the sport. However, his physical prowess is disrupted by the psychological phenomenon of “the yips,” causing his body to fumble under the mental toll of pressure and high expectations.
The Serve makes a lot of smart choices, like introducing the yips through the main player’s anxious Googling about whether or not they are real, and sports commentators chronicling the player’s missteps like the voices he hears in his head. The lead character never speaks, but his facial expressions are emotionally effective, and anxiety-inducing cuts, angles, and flashbacks do an excellent job of putting the audience inside his head and flailing body. The film’s ending feels hopeful without being trite, reminding us that sometimes we need to go back to the simple joy of what drove us to our passions to relieve some of the stress that comes with being the best at them.
“I am beautiful. I am enough. I am my own box.” So goes the self-therapy refrain in the short film Hummus, directed by, written by, and starring Marcelo Rodrigues as the deeply troubled Marko. A film with one character isolated in a room, talking mostly to themselves, can become dull and monotonous without some imagination. Rodrigues engages the viewer with visual artistry, including the set design and props in Marko’s apartment reflecting his subtle shifts in mood. With a little absurdist humor and the juxtaposition between comforting routines like making hummus and moments of desperation like putting a box over his head while repeating his mantra, Hummus is a poignant portrayal of a man desperately trying to talk himself into loving and accepting himself.
The one-man show is effective in keeping the focus on Marko’s internal journey, which must come entirely from within. It is only when he feels more in touch and at peace with his identity that Marko is in a place where he can begin opening his window and reaching out. Everything in Hummus is richly symbolic: the box, the window, the lilies signaling the world outside. Hummus is one of the more challenging films in the festival because we’re not used to witnessing the journey of an individual’s struggles with anxiety and belonging to self-acceptance unfolding within one person and one room without any kind of interruption of outside stimuli. Yet that is often where the most important growth takes place, and I have to applaud Marcelo Rodrigues for being brave enough to experience it and find a way to show it.
Created by Canadian spoken-word poet Sadie McCarney, the experimental short film Head War gives off pure manic wildcard energy. Free-wheeling and free-associating, both with the narrative and imagery, I felt like Sadie’s surreal tone-poem capturing her two-month stay in a psychiatric facility was more accurate to my own personal experience with psychiatric institutions than most of the so-called realistic portrayals I have seen in the movies.
Head War is truly a good title for this piece, because Sadie’s journey of recovery reflects a tug-of-war in her mind between the manic state that convinces her she is Joan of Arc and the head of Google’s operations, and the emerging realization that in order to leave the confines of psychiatric confinement she must change her state of mind to get well. The dark yet often playful pull in Sadie’s mind is amplified by the lack of other voices in the film, and by backdrops like bus doorways and empty office rooms where she addresses a nonexistent audience while talking back to the search-engine voice operating her mind.
Despite its creativity some well-placed dark humor, I won’t lie and say that Head War is a pleasant and easy watch, nor was it meant to be. It’s a little rough around the edges and personal and idiosyncratic. It takes a lot of big swings and risks, not all of which I think are entirely successful. However, when it comes to Mental Filmness, if there are a couple of very good films about a similar topic, I feel like we lean more toward the one that feels the truest and the most personal, and that very often is the riskier and rougher film. Both Head War and Mental Filmness may not be for everyone, but they’re very much a good fit for each other.
As an artist living with bipolar disorder, I’d like to take a minute to highlight the excellent work being done by the Ryan Licht Sang Foundation for Bipolar Disorder. Every year, they offer a competition for artists who identify as living with bipolar disorder called INSIGHTS. If an artist is selected for INSIGHTS, they receive a $500 grant from the foundation, an invitation to the exhibition’s opening night, and a permanent place in the foundation’s touring art collection.
I was honored to have my art selected for INSIGHTS in 2022 and again in 2025, where the theme was resilience. I believe in the strong tie between creativity and the bipolar brain that they celebrate, and that other artists and authors have explored. Dusty and Joyce Sang created the foundation after their son Ryan passed away from bipolar disorder at the age of 24. Ryan was a talented artist and the Sangs launched the foundation to create awareness of the condition and to fund research into biomarkers and early intervention for this mental illness.
I have to admit, sometimes my contrarian brain has thought, is there some kind of tension between wanting to celebrate the artistic gifts of bipolar disorder, and funding research for early detection and intervention? I don’t think there’s a “cure” in any case for bipolar disorder, only treatment in whatever form that takes. For many people living with bipolar disorder, art is part of the treatment and recovery process, and I do think early intervention would help save lives. I think that these art exhibits give people hope and pride that those living with a chronic mental health condition can possess creative gifts, and that creativity can also express how it feels to live with that condition in a way that could not otherwise be communicated.
One of my favorite things about the virtual festival is discovering how different cultures from all over the world interpret mental health. When I first heard the premise of the Iranian film Blur, which involves an act of deception involving a mother, her deceased daughter, and her husband who is in recovery from a car accident, I thought it sounded like an outlandish premise with a tenuous connection to mental health at best. Some films just have to be experienced to be understood, and there was a turning point where I was immersed in grief to the point where I couldn’t help but break down crying like someone had gut-punched me.
Director Sahra Asadollahi guides the story with a confident hand, allowing the camera to capture the pain and ugliness of devastating grief and loss, particularly in one scene where the reality that the mother is trying to avoid about her daughter washes over her when the illusion is broken. The lead performance by Hasan Biouk Khan as a mother trying to console her husband and also herself is masterful and compelling, with emotion written all over her face the entire time without feeling too melodramatic at any point. In short, Blur is an impressively accomplished short film from an often suppressed Iranian filmmaking culture that demonstrates the power of illusion and emotional courage against forces that lie outside of our control.
Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to draw the line between whether a film is more about a mental health as opposed to a physical condition or disability, and at some point I gave up on making those kinds of distinctions. I realized that especially for the types of films people were submitting to Mental Filmness, the conditions were so intertwined or similar that ultimately the feeling was almost indistinguishable for them.
Such is the case with the German animated music video Each Day Feels the Same by Lisa Reinerth. It is a quiet, emotional music video inspired by Reinerth’s life experience with ME/CFS –a neurological illness often triggered by viral infections like COVID that traps millions in exhaustion and stillness. Listening to it outside of that context, it sounded to me like a song mirroring exactly how I feel when I’m trapped in my bed during an exhausting depressive episode, when it requires all of my energy to move under the crushing weight of the world and I’m so foggy the days blur together, one into the next. And functionally, I’m sure that the feeling is almost the same, many people suffer from both at the same time, and that in both cases the mental and the physical exacerbate the worst in each other.
Each Days Feels the Same is important because it shines a light on invisible disabilities, whether they are your body’s limbs betraying themselves or the fact that your mind is becoming too depressed or traumatized to focus the way you need to on your daily activities. The fact that the struggle cannot be seen by others makes the disability harder to understand and unfortunately, also difficult to even believe for some people. That is why Lisa Reinerth’s video is so important. Not only does it offer a healing reassurance that those struggling with such disabilities are seen and heard, but it also offers an uplifting message that hope and strength tend to come back, though the process can be slow. Imagery of a swimming fish, and the repetition of the hymn-like original song, work in tandem to communicate the message that such feelings are usually cyclical in nature.
This was the year of the experimental film for Mental Filmness. I feel like this is an art form that flourishes in chaos and upheaval, because it uses a visual and aural language that defies logic and conveys pure emotion and expression unhindered by a conventional format or narrative. That is exactly what Dreamscapes is– a short film that describes itself as “a genre-blurring experimental film exploring mental health not as a diagnosis, but as a shifting inner reality—at once painful, beautiful, glamorous and strange.”
Dreamscapes was created by Rachel Gray and the Rooster Collective of disabled artists based out of Ottawa, Canada, and based upon the lived experiences of performance artist Amelia Rose Griffin’s struggles with CPTSD and brain injury. Unveiling one dazzling set piece after another that looks artfully handcrafted and expressive of inner states, bubbling over with creative and evocative sound design, and propelled by a haunting and poetic voice-over narration, Dreamscapes is an indescribable, multi-sensory gem.
As previously mentioned, Mental Filmness is a big advocate of the voice of youth in mental health. The next, younger generation is shedding the stigma against speaking openly about mental health conditions and is spreading awareness through avenues like social media and art. The voice of youth is armed with a vocabulary about diagnoses and medication that was suppressed in silence for their ancestors, and they are also savvy and woke enough to know that not all of this vocabulary is medically accurate or culturally sensitive.
It’s interesting to see youth tackle a topic that is old as time itself, like nature therapy. Looking Up feels both old and young–for generations it’s been common knowledge that getting outside, getting fresh air, and taking in natural landscapes is good for both your physical and mental health. The three emerging female directors behind Looking Up—Lily Winter (New Zealand), Stephanie Guest (South Africa/Philippines), and Charlotte Gillespie (England), college students from New Zealand—do not aim to put a modern twist on this narrative. They’re confident enough that some quiet, contemplative, and beautiful nature photography and composition, relaxing and ambient sound design, and a few compelling interwoven stories from people describing how birdwatching has helped alleviate their depression, trauma, and anxiety, will work its ageless magic. They’re right. Meditative and healing, Looking Up is literally a breath of fresh air.
The Mental Filmness team has been continually surprised by the quality of films about mental health made by kids as young as high-school-age teenagers. This year we had enough youth filmmaking we had enough to fill a whole block of shorts. If the formula’s not broken, there’s no need to fix it. Go outside on a day when you’re stressed out and look up—you’ll see a whole other world playing out in the treetops, and get just a glimpse of the complicated web of life that is both outside of, connected to, and a part of you. You might just spot a sparrow or a blackbird while you’re there.
Grounded: Creating Space for Black Peace was just added to the features section, so be sure to check for it there. Brittney Brackett’s powerful documentary covers some extremely important and often overlooked issues in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health issues in the black community, and the importance of sharing stories and healing.
The film is broken into a few different sections and begins with the meaning of recognizing Juneteenth in America, and the healing nature of telling the story of race in America and healing through art. Stemming from a history of slavery, segregation, and continued racial oppression, black Americans face generational and cultural trauma that is often misdiagnosed and suppressed. Exhibits and conversations such as the ones featured in the International African American Museum in South Carolina give a name and voice to this history, creating a base from which to heal.
The final part of the film instills hope in the viewer and focuses on possible solutions to racial mental health disparities, such as teaching emotional intelligence and addressing bullying in the school system, creating safe spaces and sensory rooms in schools, and teaching children grounding and mindfulness techniques. Through more acceptance of mental health issues and coping techniques, it’s possible we can help break the cycles of trauma and suppression.
Brackett’s film is around 40 minutes long, and I feel like I could have watched a whole feature that further expounded on many of these topics. At the same time, by fitting them all into one it’s possible for viewers to learn a lot about mental health in an economical timeframe, and to allow the audience to pursue more academics and activism on their own.
For an uplifting, accessible introduction to a topic that is in vital need of a wider audience, make sure to watch Grounded: Creating Space for Black Peace, now in the features section, and cast a virtual ballot to tell us what YOU think. Pass it on!
Philip Brubaker “grew up” with Mental Filmness. His film Brushes With Life, an empathetic documentary about participants in a program highlighting the works of artists living with mental illness, played in the very first Mental Filmness film festival. Philip, always generous and passionate about both film and mental health, traveled from Florida to Chicago to attend and speak about it. I think at the time, we were both finding our footing a bit. In a way, we’ve followed the same trajectory of growth, adopting a more expansive view of both our definition of mental health and our idea of depicting it on film.
Since that initial meeting Philip has veered into the weird and experimental in his on-screen depiction of his diagnosis of bipolar disorder, evoking the feeling of a manic or psychotic episode rather than the clinical definition that would come from a psychiatrist. Some audience members might recall that we screened his film How to Explain Your Mental Illness to Stanley Kubrick in the virtual festival a few years back. I was surprised and delighted to see that Philip had made such a bizarre and personal film, wherein he summoned one of his filmmaking heroes, Kubrick, into his time period and living room to confront him about the depiction of mental illness in his movies.
Murdergame is, as Philip explains here, one of the “wildcards” of the festival. This interview helps explain the unusual Murdergame’s context and fit within the festival. An ostensible film studies essay about themes in Hitchcock’s films, it veers wildly off the rails into surreal imagery of being attacked by physical video filmstrips and Tetris blocks. The film is meant to evoke the visceral feeling of a manic episode rather than a literal portrayal of one, and for someone who shares both Philip’s age and diagnosis I feel its successful in its own weird way.
Mudergame is part of Philip’s Trilogy of Delusion, a trio of films which were inspired by the unhinged freedom of magical manic thinking. Seven years ago when we first met, Philip had never made any of these films and honestly I’m not sure that Mental Filmness would have been selecting and screening films of this nature. Now I’ve become much more aware of how important it is to keep an open mind about what makes a film about mental health, including different perspectives on mental health as well as different types of films, and I have a strong base of volunteers and jury members who are more familiar with different film genres. That being said, I think the placement of Murdergame in the program is the result of the evolution of both Philip’s films and the festival, which have both adopted more complex and nuanced ideas about mental health and what makes a “mental health movie.”
And if you’re wondering what it’s all about, definitely check out my interview with long-time festival supporter, video essayist/experimental filmmaker and friend Philip Brubaker here:
