Mental Filmness

The seventh annual Mental Filmness film festival kicks off on World Mental Health Day, 10/10/25.

The evenings of 10/10 and 10/11/25 will feature live screenings in Chicago with local short films and filmmaker guests in person at the Chicago Hope Academy, from 7-10 p.m. Get your free tickets, going fast, here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mental-filmness-a-film-festival-about-mental-health-tickets-1685543228169

Also on World Mental Health Day, 10/10, Mental Filmness will launch an online virtual film festival about mental health that will be available to watch for free, from the comfort of your own home, from anywhere in the world. The virtual festival will be up online from 10/10 through 11/2/25 for on-demand streaming, and will feature filmmaker interviews, discussion forums, audience voting, and other ways to watch and interact. Keep an eye on this page for the virtual festival link appearing next week, and for virtual festival content released from 10/10 to 11/2.

Mental Filmness is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to spread mental health awareness and empathy through the expressive medium of film. All of our programs are free, and all for mental health. Thank you for your support.

What’s up with the notification date? Some observant or eager filmmakers may have noticed it’s been pushed back a couple of times. The new expected notification date is August 25th. I sincerely hate to keep you in suspense, but I’d hate even more to let down the spirit of the festival by not curating carefully and providing the best, most diverse, realistic, and empathetic programming possible. We received over 200 films this year, which is a significantly greater number than we have in the past; many of the films are longer in runtime than usual; and our organizer as well as a few jury members have had their own personal struggles. I can assure you the shifting date is a sign that Mental Filmness is a serious endeavor, and not an “award mill” festival—your film will be watched, probably by at least a couple of people who really care passionately about this topic, and the selection process involves many factors including balancing the overall lineup and is very thorough. Thank you for your wonderful work and for hanging in there—we’ll be in touch soon, stay tuned!

I’ve had a lot more eyes on this page lately despite its low level of activity, and I can only guess that is because Chicago film critic Jim Laczkowski just undertook a comprehensive project to log all of the films that have played the Mental Filmness festival he could find on Letterboxd! Thank you, Jim! For your consideration: https://letterboxd.com/…/mental-filmness-film-festival/

I also, on his sound advice, started a project to write Letterboxd reviews for every film that has played the festival, one that I dropped at some point but would love to pick up again. This list should make it much easier! You might have noticed that I enjoy writing reviews of all of the films playing the festival anyway as a way to try to entice viewers to watch them and to highlight why we chose them, so really a lot of times it’s a matter of copying and pasting and a little editing and putting them all in one place.

I always wish I could get more eyes on these incredible films. Let me know if there’s anything I’ve overlooked, or if you’ve just put your film on Letterboxd (you should!), or if there are any other projects you’re working on or ways you’d like to promote the films, and I’ll try my best. What an interesting and diverse variety of submissions and selections we’ve had over the years!

Hello and happy new year, Mental Filmness supporters!

It’s hard for me to believe that 2024 was the year of the sixth annual Mental Filmness film festival. Six years ago, I had the idea to program a small grassroots festival featuring films that portrayed mental health in a realistic and empathetic way, challenging stereotypes and enlightening audiences. It began as a two-day screening of films at Comfort Station in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood and has since grown to encompass many people and adventures I never would have imagined.

Mental Filmness helped keep me occupied and sane during the years of the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic, when movie theaters and screening venues shuttered and I decided to forge ahead and convert it into a virtual festival. The virtual festival continues to add a key component in expanding the reach of the festival to those who live outside of Chicago. I’ve also come to view the virtual festival as an opportunity to continue to program some excellent international cinema on mental health, while trying as much as possible to shift toward selecting or recruiting more local Chicagoland-based talent for live screenings. Among a number of mental health-themed film festivals out there now, Mental Filmness is the *Chicago-based* one and I hope to further define that identity as word spreads and we keep tapping into the rich wellspring of Chicago independent filmmaking. Of course others are welcome for live screenings as well, and I’ve been impressed and moved by those who have traveled here for low or no fee because of how much they believed in the mission of spreading mental health awareness through the medium of film. More on that soon.

I felt like 2024 was our best year yet for Mental Filmness, with more Chicago engagement and more community engagement overall. We continued to work with our partner the Chicago Public Library to host a couple of special events; our Secrets Women Keep Screening with filmmaker Jessica Mathis and comedienne Mandee McKelvey at the Independence Branch Library in April and our Community Healing Screening with filmmaker Cortez Mack and Flourish Research at the Douglass Library in June. The annual festival took place from October 10-12 at the Chicago Hope Academy, and the first two evenings featured a diverse variety of entirely local filmmakers, most of whom were present to speak about their films. These screenings drew some of our largest audiences, and most importantly the audience asked thoughtful questions and shared heartfelt commentary and stories, and the filmmakers responded in kind. We closed out the festival the final evening on October 12th with the colorful and unique psychological horror film Compression, and writer/director/producer Jakob Bilinski, producer/lead actress Emily Jean Durchholz, and actor Kevin Roach generously traveled to Chicago from Evansville, Indiana to attend the screening and give an insightful talkback with the audience. Though we were lighter on attendance the final evening the audience was still very engaged and related to the mental health portrayals of agoraphobia and anxiety in the film. Compression, a film about a true crime podcaster who is forced to confront her trauma during a psychedelic trip, is very distinctive among the entries Mental Filmness has received and screened, and I hope to spread the word and build the audience for this film.

The 2024 virtual festival, as usual, was a bit of a challenge to promote, but every year I learn a few new tricks. By promoting it as a virtual event on a few online event venues and putting up more videos and reels on social media, we received more views and engagement than in the past. In particular the interviews with filmmakers were viewed much more often when reels or videos of them were uploaded to social media, with most of them garnering views in the triple digits. I’m sure it also helped that I was able to recruit some spectacular interviewers from our volunteer base that added some new faces and diverse viewpoints to the conversation (huge thanks to Beatrice Wong, Jim Laczkowski, Danielle Gibson, and Nick Chirico for your help with the interviews). I designed some online discussion forums for films on the website which were a bit of a flop, as new experiments can sometimes be. However, now that I know how to do this, I may try to re-tool them as general forums for discussion on mental health and movies throughout the year, so stay tuned.

What lies ahead for the future of Mental Filmness? We are now a tax-exempt nonprofit organization, and I have only begun to explore the benefits that status provides. I hope to apply for more grants in the year ahead to help fund assets like travel stipends for artists who want to visit and speaking honorariums for artists and community organizations. I hope to look into more opportunities to partner with Chicago mental health organizations and advocates (if interested, please write a proposal to sharon@mentalfilmness.com—-I know I have received a few requests I haven’t replied to yet and I deeply apologize, the last couple of months have been extremely hectic for me, but I hope to answer as many as I can soon). I hope to continue to build our volunteer base by partnering with schools for internships (a fantastic opportunity I discovered last year) and reaching out to filmmakers and mental health advocates looking for a virtual volunteer opportunity. I hope to host more live screenings throughout the year (hopefully even more) to keep Mental Filmness on the radar of the Chicago film scene. The Chicago Public Library has continued to be a fantastic partner for this endeavor, having provided a free venue as well as generous sponsorships from the library’s Diversability Committee, Women’s History Committee, and African American Heritage Committee in 2024 to bring some inspiring filmmakers and performers to the library. I hope to host more programs at the library and at other educational and community venues as to spread mental health awareness in general.

Other than those lofty goals, having more free time now, I hope to be more present in the coming year in both the Chicago film scene and the Chicago mental health scene to forge connections and keep the fest on everyone’s radar. Mental Filmness is now a proud member of the Chicago Alliance of Film Festivals, which awarded us a generous grant that was quite helpful in funding some of the basic operating costs for the 2024 festival. There are also so many amazing film schools in Chicago including Northwestern’s Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab, which is dedicated to making films about mental health. I have seen a couple of truly impressive screenings of student work now at this school now that possess a raw and vital energy and personal vulnerability that simply cannot be found in the big Hollywood mental health portrayals. I was proud that Mental Filmness screened our first submission ever from this important school this year, the sensitive and sophisticated The Color of Fire by the talented young director Seunghee Chang, and hope that we will receive more. Let this serve as a reminder that we love to screen student shorts and shorts by emerging filmmakers. If you have one with a strong theme of mental health, please submit, especially if you live in Chicago!

I would like to thank anyone who follows Mental Filmness, and a huge thank-you to anyone who actually took the time to read this. I know this has been a challenging year for many and I do apologize for going dark on social media for a bit after the fest, as it was personally a very hectic and challenging time for me. FYI I am deleting the Mental Filmness Twitter soon, but the Mental Filmness Facebook page and website will remain active, and you can keep following us there. Thank you for your support and I wish you a Happy New Year and good mental health in the year ahead.

Most sincerely,

~~Sharon Gissy

Organizer, Mental Filmness Film Festival

The results are in for the 2024 Mental Filmness Virtual Festival awards! It seems like we received way less votes than usual, so perhaps I should have reminded people they could vote, including on each individual short, and how to do it—though it’s not really what’s most important, it’s kind of fun.

When The Rain Falls In Baden-Baden – This was a clear audience favorite and I figured it would be. Every single frame of this Italian short film directed by Alessandro Soetje is beautiful and gorgeously shot, and the ending is a surprising tearjerker. The story itself is a clever riff on the poetic art film Last Year At Marienbad, but if you’ve seen that film, this one takes the nature of memory in a much more loving and bittersweet, though still melancholy, direction. In terms of mental health it speaks to aging, dementia, and memory loss in a graceful way. However, I do not think this film is very realistic. It is more of a romantic fairy tale, but I’ve learned that great films about mental health do not have to be realistic or explicit to communicate something relevant and poignant about the topic. Thus, I think this film is befitting of the Audience Award, as it probably had the most mass appeal to an audience out of any film in the virtual festival this year, and that was reflected in the voting.

On the flip side, one thing that really surprised me is how high writer-director Oliver Granillo’s A Silent Scream ranked in the voting. Here is a film I thought was extremely important and realistic, but one that might be a difficult watch for an audience at times. Namely because a good portion of the film follows a suicidally depressed individual sobbing and alone, reaching out on the phone for help. I loved that this individual was a Latino man, cutting through some important stereotypes about men’s mental health and machismo. What I probably loved the most, however, is that I had been in the same place as the main character at one point in my life, suicidally depressed and clinging to any person and lifeline I could, and it felt so shockingly accurate as to what I experienced at that time. Re-living it was both painful and healing knowing I wasn’t alone. I’m happy its raw vulnerability resonated with others as well. I am torn about whether to give this film the Stigma Breaker or Realism Award, because it seems like an appropriate fit for both. However, I am going with the Stigma Breaker award just in light of comparison with the other two films that ranked up there with it, and because I feel like its depiction of men’s mental health was the biggest stigma-breaker by far this year.

The Canadian documentary My Dad’s Tapes connected with a lot of viewers, and I think that is because it is a film that completely lets downs its guard. Even further, it breaks down barriers and guards the filmmaker Kurtis Watson’s family had put up around discussing his father’s suicide. Through a combination of home video footage and vulnerable interviews, a portrait of Kurtis’s father emerges, though there will never be answers or closure as to why he took his life. Still, My Dad’s Tapes shows how important it is to de-stigmatize suicide and how we keep people alive through our shared collective memory. For its gritty exploration of a real family’s grief and healing, My Dad’s Tapes, made by Kurtis Watson and Rob Viscardis, seems like a natural fit for this year’s Realism Award.

Our other high-ranking film this year was the short film Reya’s World directed by the talented young filmmaker Isabella Sri Montana from the United Kingdom. Again this was a bit of a surprise to me as even though I felt like it was one of the most spot-on depictions of major cyclical depression I’ve ever seen, I wasn’t sure if it would connect with every viewer. The film has a dark blue tint and fuzziness that never lifts. White noise, constant hiss, and murky speech tap into the experience of depression for young Reya, who is sleepwalking through her life. Disconnected shots of dirty dishes stacked up, falling asleep in front of a staticky screen, listening to someone give advice about jogging or meditating, are all part of the picture. My feeling about this film is that most people who have experienced major clinical depression will see themselves in it. However, for those who haven’t I hope it can give them a sense of what it feels like in a genuine sensory, tactile way. For that reason I think that this film is deserving of the Empathy Award. 

Thanks to the audience for voting, congratulations to the award-winning filmmakers, and congratulations to the selected filmmakers and all those who submitted! This was a fantastic year.

The Mental Filmness virtual festival concluded this evening, which signifies the end of our sixth (!) annual festival season. But it’s not all over.

Tomorrow I will post audience awards—I just do this for the virtual festival now. Eventive makes it super easy for the audience to vote and to tabulate results, so I still look at those and divide them into awards based on realism, empathy, and stigma-breakers. I feel like I should be doing *something* with those audience votes and information. I hope everyone realizes though that many factors affect these stats, and really you’re all winners just by being selected, we receive way more submissions than we can host every year and there are always some tough choices to be made.

In exciting news that could not be more timely, Mental Fiilmness just received its first-ever grant! Granted (haha) it is a micro-grant, but as a shoestring budget operation (that often exceeds that budget) this will go a long way. They were very generous, and it is so incredibly meaningful that this was “baby’s first grant” because it is from the Chicago Alliance of Film Festivals (CAFF), a wonderful group organized by Facets Multimedia recently to help connect and recognize Chicago-based film festivals. There are actually more and more mental health-themed film festivals popping up now, and while I think that’s totally awesome, I feel like the way to continue to distinguish ourselves is by being the “Chicago-based” one. That was very apparent this year as we received more submissions than ever from Chicago-based filmmakers and featured them exclusively in our live screenings, and I could feel the Chicago love. I still love running a virtual festival to feature as many films as we can for a wider audience, especially cinematic interpretations on mental health from other cultures.

The CAFF micro-grant is also very generous in that it is targeted toward small film festivals for their operating expenses and does not require an accounting report of the funds like many grants do. In the full transparent disclosure of grants that nonprofits are supposed to give (and we are a nonprofit), I will probably apply the funds from this grant retroactively to this year’s festival for costs like venue rental and the Eventive platform. However, that will help free up funding for the future. And the future….

This has been the best year yet. Mainly because I have learned from so many of my mistakes and have made many more connections. I hope to continue to host more Mental Filmness events year-round to engage the Chicago community. The Chicago Public Library has been a great partner for this and hopefully we can find even more. Although I’ve thought often about giving up on this endeavor, there’s always been helpers convincing me otherwise. I want to connect with more mental health groups who I think could benefit from our message. Feel free to DM me!

“Look for the helpers” is a Mr. Rogers quote I often think of. They’ve always been there, no matter how much I have doubted this passion project. People warned me it would be hard, but after years of doing Chicago Public Library programs I have grown accustomed to meticulously planning something for months and then waiting anxiously in an empty room for someone to show up. A lot of the festival has been waiting in empty rooms for people to show up. But eventually, at least a couple always did. Sometimes the audience was small, but it was never disappointing. The people who were there found us, and really wanted to be there. All of the filmmakers seemed to feel recognized and happy with the engaged talkback.

It’s always been difficult for me to promote Mental Filmness aggressively, because I am shy and lack self-confidence. The only thing that has helped me has been to think it is bigger than myself, and I am merely a conduit and curator through which great art flows. It has especially helped me getting more people involved, including an incredibly dedicated jury who brought diverse perspectives and even brought those perspectives to the interviews this year. These things help me think that Mental Filmness is truly a “we” rather than a “me” thing, and I know that it’s bigger than me, and I’d be disappointing more people than myself if I gave it up.

I initially started this festival, not knowing that a mental health festival was an already-established thing, because after struggling with my own bipolar disorder, and being a huge cinephile, it was healing for me to see people portray mental health in a sensitive and empathetic way on screen, and I wanted to see more of that. Boy, have I ever. We’ve constantly championed that sort of raw vulnerability over any kind of technical skill, including showcasing so many student shorts, first-time filmmakers, and films shot on Iphones, that portray mental illness realistically.

Thanks to all of you supporting this journey, no matter at what stage. Obviously, this festival would not continue to exist without some sort of audience and support. We surely appreciate you, and watch out here for future developments.

XOXO

~~Sharon Gissy

Curator and Organizer, Mental Filmness Film Festival

Some you might remember the young Tanner Hirten of our Youth In Mental Health short films block last year, who made the creative short film Restart about a college student stuck in a time loop trying to prevent her friend’s suicide. I was so excited to discover that he’s still making films about mental health. Say Something is a much different short film about social anxiety with some fun concepts and animation. I continue to be impressed by Tanner’s creativity in addressing mental health issues. Our inimitable jury member Nick Chirico interviewed him about his techniques and growth as a filmmaker. You can check out his work in the festival tonight (about a 10-minute short) or even on his YouTube channel listed below later!

Nick: Do you think you have grown at all after completing shooting?

Tanner: I definitely feel like I grow after every film I do. It’s a process with a lot of moving parts so you have to make multiple films in order to get a good grasp on those parts. It’s something I’m still working on but I’ve definitely gotten better at it. I’ve also grown in my social skills, reaching out for help and building a community for a film can be scary. But because of a project like Say Something I’ve been collaborating with individuals for multiple short films now!

Nick: One thing that I thought developed very nicely was the agency of empowerment Christine projects onto Joseph’s vulnerability. She goes out of her way to really take the wheel for him. I was very moved by this. I think it represents a whole new crop of women who are following trailblazers to empowerment and independence. How was equity important in depicting mental health issues for Christine as a female in a more dominant position?

Tanner: I really wanted to have a male female relationship in the story but not necessarily focus on gender roles. In plenty of stories with two characters like Joseph and Christine they fall in love at the end. But I thought it was more interesting to depict a platonic relationship between them. I feel that a natural friendship between a man and woman is sadly under-explored as a relationship archetype and I wanted to use it. There are no romantic undertones in Say Something, it’s just two people who feel overwhelmed trying to get over that feeling by relying on each other. And I think there is something sweet about that.

Nick: Oh no doubt. In this case are any of these characters based on people in real life with real mental health issues?

Tanner: Not specifically no, there’s a show called Komi Can’t Communicate that has a similar premise but I hadn’t watched that when I made Say Something. Christine and Joseph are more archetypes than anything. Representative of mental health issues but not based on my personal experience with it.

Nick: I was really impressed by the animation. Can you tell me about your process in illustration to produce the cool eyeballs in the final cut?

Tanner: Yeah my friend is an animator so I had him help me make them. I knew I wanted something with a hand-drawn vibe to it and also wanted the eyes to have big pupils to add to their judgement. He was able to animate them moving and blinking, we went through a few different versions to see which one would look best. Namely alternates with smaller pupils but we ended with the final product eye and it fit seamlessly into the shots. I had those shorts formatted even before we filmed in my head to fit with the eyes but I’m still shocked that they worked as well as they did.

Nick: They certainly did! Are you working on anything currently?

Tanner: I finished up filming my newest short film a few weeks ago and I’m in the process of editing it! Another short film involving mental health but this time with a sock puppet. So stay tuned for that in the future! People can find my content on YouTube at @tannerhirten7668 or Instagram @tannerhirten.

It is 11/3, the final evening of Mental Filmness! Happy Sunday! I am aware that I accidentally had 11/5 on the Eventive landing page, I think because I was editing over last year’s page, but please note it is 3 and hopefully you noticed that everywhere else. As much as I’d like to do it, I think it would be too difficult to get permission from all of the filmmakers to extend the viewing window at this point, so you’ll just have to be mad at me for my mistake.

Anyway! The virtual festival has been up a good long while now, since World Mental Health Day on 10/10, so hopefully you got a chance to check out a lot of the films. I think there’s only one I haven’t written a capsule review for yet, and that is A Book About Science.

Written and directed by the young filmmaker Ryan Manuud, A Book About Science is one of the more accomplished student shorts I’ve seen, and I’ve seen many at this point. The story is about a neuroscience major writing his thesis on brain chemicals, and it uses a clever narrative device where the different chemicals start to seep into his real life and improve his thesis. The lead actor Ethan Hetrick who plays the neuroscience student Arthur has just the right nerdy, awkward vulnerability, there is some delightful music, and overall the short offers a welcome lighter view with a touch of humor and a hopeful ending. It’s a charming and bittersweet coming-of-age story that showcases the intersection between the science of brain chemistry and human emotions/mental health, and you can watch it for FREE in the Mental Filmness virtual festival through this evening at 9 p.m.

Watch A Book About Science here until 9:00 p.m. this evening here: https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/66f084de37280200a77ffdfc/67020ac73f5b89006326c973

Just ONE more day to watch the Mental Filmness virtual fest and just a couple more highlights—but y’all in the States get an extra hour head-start due to Daylight Savings Time! Woo!

I’ll admit it, I’m always a little skeptical when a film about mental health ends on the note of therapy implying “now they’re getting therapy/seeking help, it’s all good.” Of course, it depends on the film and the context, and sometimes that particular ending seems very redeeming and well-earned, so I don’t mean to knock it. However, as a lot of us know, therapy is often the beginning of very hard work, not the magic bullet. Sometimes it makes you feel worse before it makes you feel better. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Sometimes different types of therapy, or different therapists, work better at different times in your life. It’s all so complicated.

I loved that the short film Sobriety clearly showed that therapy is hard work, and maybe it doesn’t always work. Sometimes I would bristle when my therapist kept asking, again and again, “And how do you feel about that?” and the main character Isley does here, too. This short film is a simple, no-frills, dramatic set piece, but it captures the actual reality of therapy—the awkwardness, sometimes unwelcome probing, and clenched defensiveness, better than many pieces I’ve seen.

Perhaps what I loved the most about writer-director Kina Johnson’s vision is it reconciled two concepts that—as an outsider, I’ve just heard—-are often in conflict with each other: black therapy and the black church. Here is a young black woman in therapy (with another black woman), discussing alcoholism, abandonment, and the occasional redemption she feels with her faith, all with some skepticism. That’s the kind of nuance you just rarely see on screen.

You still have through tomorrow evening, 11/3, to catch Sobriety in the virtual festival: https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/6704b2b8dd02d60047462b6c/66f08b2c99e92b003a2e472d

Hello Mental Filmness viewers! It’s the last weekend of the virtual festival and there are two additions to the finale lineup.

One is Paper Veil, another one of those short shorts that is abstract and experimental, by the multimedia artist Jinian Raine Harwig. I had meant to show this more as an art installation projected on a loop at the live screenings, but got caught up in the hectic nature of the live festival and forgot about setting it up. I hope to show it live somewhere in the future, but for now you can get a sneak peek at it in the virtual fest: https://mentalfilmness2024.eventive.org/films/paper-veil-6724f5bbbb8c16005e65b1b0

This film is special because I met Jinian earlier this year at a mental health art exhibit in Canada where her film was being projected and it was a really cool and unforgettable experience.

You also might have been curious about a film called My Dad’s Tapes, which surfaced and then disappeared from the virtual fest. We didn’t want to conflict with the film’s run in other festivals so offered a limited window for viewing, but they agreed to another limited run this weekend to coincide with the interview done by our inimitable jury member Danielle Gibson. A vulnerable and revealing exploration into the suicide of director Kurtis Watson’s father, this film uses a combination of video footage and family and community interviews to come to a sense of bonding and healing grief, even if they’ll never have answers or closure. Watch the director and protagonist Kurtis Watson and writer/producer Ron Viscardis in this revealing interview and check out the film playing in the virtual festival again this weekend.

https://mentalfilmness2024.eventive.org/films/my-dad-s-tapes-66f4c382c84d2600c0a8d905