Mental Filmness

It’s true, I was biased towards this movie. I tend to like movies by young filmmakers, who just seem to have so much raw creative energy. I like Tanner Hirten, who participated in our Youth In Mental Health shorts block last year, I believe when he was still a teenager, and I loved his film Restart, about a young college girl stuck in a time loop trying to save her friend from suicide. I was happy to see that he’s continuing to make movies about mental health. I feel like he’s grown as a young filmmaker in his visual style.

Say Something is also a little bit on the lighter side, which is always welcome in the festival. It’s largely a symbolic interpretation of social anxiety, rather than an in-depth exploration. Its motif of eyes if very clever, and there’s other clever moments, like handing someone a card saying you have social anxiety. I also appreciated that the best remedy for this particular malady was hearing someone confess that they had it, too. I think anyone who has social anxiety knows it can’t be cured in a three-step process, and that it’s more about learning to live with it and realizing you’re not alone in experiencing it. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and realize so many of those eyes you think are watching and judging you really are more often than not a product of your imagination.

You can currently watch Say Something in Shorts Block No. 4 of the virtual festival, FREE through November 3rd: https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/67020e1b7520fd00560960a7

Tell us what you think in the forums: https://www.mentalfilmness.com/forums

There’s seems to be some narrative backstory missing from this film, but that’s not what this film is about. It zeroes in on one specific message I’ve rarely seen a film explore so realistically: Committing a loved one to a psych ward is one of the most psychologically damaging, and yet potentially psychologically rewarding, decisions you can ever make. The loved one is usually not grateful for, and is sometimes even hateful of, your decision. Yet you may have saved their lives, and if you hadn’t done it in time, it might have ruined yours. Writer/director Jennie Jarvis captures all of that emotional flux and complexity in a scant 8-minute run time. Sure, the aunt-nephew relationship and preceding events could have been expanded on, but by focusing solely on the emotional weight of that tricky decision, and hammering it home, this short film is able to play upon multiple facets of that pivotal choice and bring them to light: the anguish, the grief, the regret, and even the faint rays of hope.

Those who have experienced a scene like the one that plays out in Committed will probably be able to relate to the scores of whiplash emotions that play across lead actress Jennifer Faith Ward’s expressive face questioning whether she did the right thing while sitting across from her completely catatonic, non-responsive nephew during her visit to see him in the psych ward. Those who have not, might be surprised to learn that sometimes people in a self-destructive spiral are actively ungrateful for someone trying to get them help or even save their life. Committed is a perfect fit for Mental Filmness because it has both relatability and educational value for a topic I rarely see portrayed accurately in film. This one nails it.

Watch Committed for FREE in the virtual festival until 11/3:

https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/6702035e87db8a002622348d

Tell us what you think! https://www.mentalfilmness.com/forums/

One of the very specific things I feel Quentin Delacourt’s short film IMPATIENT is about is admitting yourself to a psych ward as an upper-middle-class individual who perhaps doesn’t have it as bad as other inpatients, and the guilt and social awkwardness that comes along with that. Having experienced this phenomenon myself, it felt very realistic and true to life. The performances are excellent, quirky without being too over-the-top, and the relationships and chemistry between the female patients telling their stories are warm and relatable, giving off almost an “Orange Is The New Black” vibe.

There is a lot packed into this 30-minute short and I’d love to see it developed into either a TV series or a feature film. I felt like I knew every one of the characters a little by the end, and could have followed their story further. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be institutionalized, this is a realistic and respectful take on it. It’s often boring and mundane, punctuated by disturbing outbursts and little moments of peace like staring out the window or getting your favorite piece of fruit at mealtime or bonding with some of the other patients. It turns out that mental illness cuts through social class and life circumstances to forge ties between the unlikeliest of people.

You can watch Quentin Delacourt’s short film IMPATIENT for FREE in Short Films Block No. 4, live now until 11/3!

https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/67020e1b7520fd00560960a7/66f084e552ae2f003357ef60

Here is a film (I think it’s a TV pilot actually?) that defies the stereotypes of a film festival dedicated to breaking mental health stereotypes. It’s silly, irreverent, and possibly offensive at times. It’s about Jermaine, “the best pot-washer in America,” who copes with three mental health diagnoses: Bipolar II, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, and PTSD. All of them manifest as voices in his head and as characters in the film. Most laugh-out-loud hilarious to me was the lollipop-toting little girl who plays his Intermittent Explosive Disorder and admonishes him, “Are you gonna let him speak to you that way?”

This short has some pretty clever, pithy insights into black culture and mental health, such as when Jermaine tells his therapist “Now I see why black people don’t go to therapy,” and she responds that “black dollars” paid for her therapy couch. The actors, especially Jermaine and his girlfriend Bianca, have a natural charisma and chemistry that elevates their amateur status. It’s Clinical has an impressive, some might say excessive, number of musical sequences for a 30-minute runtime. Yet for a film that is so colorful and silly, it also has some shockingly accurate kernels of truth in Jermaine’s inner monologues, including his Bipolar 2 voice convincing him he deserves to splurge on a coat, or his PTSD eloquently and clearly explaining one of the key concepts many people don’t actually understand about PTSD, which is that rather than being a literal embodiment of past trauma, it’s more often a trigger that makes you re-live elements of the trauma again.

The characters playing the voices of different mental health diagnoses in It’s Clinical may come across as a little goofy at times and perhaps even reductive and simplistic. Some of the acting and sound is inconsistent, and the film takes many risks that certainly do not all pay off. There’s an odd subplot with Bianca that could seem problematic but might also be part of the film’s dark humor. This is just one of those original oddities where you have to accept what it is and roll with it. In the final analysis (haha), this is the kind of messy, imperfect, but interesting and unclassifiable personal passion project that we tend to love.

Watch It’s Clinical in Shorts Block No. 1 of the virtual fest now through 11/3: ttps://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/6702035e87db8a002622348d

Tell us what YOU think: https://mentalfilmness.com/forums/topic/its-clinical/

Introducing another way to interact with the virtual festival: the brand-new Mental Filmness discussion forums! There are discussion threads set up for each film (the short films are nested under their blocks). Feel free to have a lively discussion, just be respectful.

This is a new experiment, so let me know if you experience any bugs. I’ll be keeping an eye on it. The first time you post the site will prompt you to create a login/account you’ll use from there. Let the conversation begin!

https://mentalfilmness.com/forums

Another film that explores “what might have been” and losses from the past is writer/director Caitlin Shelor’s Lucid. Regular Mental Filmness viewers probably know we like to champion student shorts here, and Lucid is a literally dreamlike, ethereal one of those that is infused with the spirit of longing and youth.

Saffy has lost her partner, Sage, to suicide. She misses Sage so much that she is determined to visit her every night, still, in her dreams. She is so determined that she is willing to take pills and alcohol to get to those dreams, and to almost escape into them. The dreams are beautiful, in a way, because she gets to re-unite with Sage. They’re also painful because they’re temporary, and because the initial primal pleasure of seeing Sage again inevitably is interrupted, even in dreams, by the sober reminder of what happened and the circular logic that survivors of suicide loss often subject themselves to questioning what happened and why they weren’t enough.

Like many of our youth-driven student shorts, Lucid is infused with an energy that is raw and real. The simple emotional landscapes, costumes, and delicate music all conjure a feeling that is probably sadly familiar to most people: that of lost love and longing. While watching it I found myself relating to it as it reminded me of my own reconciliation dreams I have had with my own lost loves, even if they weren’t lost to suicide or even if they are still alive somewhere. Often in those dreams, I have a few moments of euphoria being there again before remembering I can’t hold on to it, any more than I could in my waking life. Lucid captures this experience perfectly.

You can watch Lucid in Shorts Block No. 3 of the virtual festival for FREE now through 11/3!

https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/67020c7b64a67e00480d87a3

Two upcoming Zoom interviews!

We have two upcoming interviews for the virtual festival, with hopefully more to come. If you are interested you can tune in live and ask questions, though they will be recorded for later viewing as well.

Interview With Jacob Bittens, Director of The Exit at Wednesday evening 10/23 at 7:30 p.m. CENTRAL time :

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86043510756?pwd=t4tZAwhjVTBPjIIpzrF3OzsOeniD7R.1

Interview With Caryn Cline, Director of Something Went Click. Friday afternoon 10/25 at 2:00 p.m. CENTRAL time: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89139010825?pwd=71xwpyfL0bbBIUYZ6qWY6GVVeRWZ1Q.1

Read more about either of these films in our Film Guide: https://mentalfilmness2024.eventive.org/films

Hopefully see some of you there!

Have you ever wished that you could return to a particular moment in your past, and thought that if only things had gone differently that day, the whole trajectory of your life would have been better? That is the plight of Lyzie, a depressed young woman who appears to have substance use problems, played tenderly in the elegant French sci-fi short 8/20/2008 by filmmaker Lucie Ballery. Most of us, as we age, probably realize that this sort of time travel wouldn’t solve all of our life’s problems, and that it may even hinder some of our growth and resilience. Lyzie isn’t quite there yet. I feel like that’s part of what the film is about: her being too young to have fully processed and accepted a devastating loss, and to have envisioned and built a life for herself without her deceased parents.

8/20/2008 is the day in her life when Lyzie experienced the terrible accident that took her parents away from her. After spiraling into a deep pit of depression, she wakes up in a nostalgic light on a beach that day where she was camping with her parents. The young actress’s face is so sad and vulnerable when she sees her parents alive again and crumples into tears that it’s a viscerally painful moment. She re-visits that afternoon again, supposedly as a child playing with her own friends, though she still appears in the film as a young adult (which is very telling). Lyzie never grew past that day, literally and figuratively. The film’s storytelling is a little loose, but I feel like it belongs to that genre of “time loop” time travel movies in way, with the twist being that the loop is an emotional cycle that the central character was never able to break.

Watch 8/20/2008 for FREE in Shorts Block No. 5 of the virtual festival, running through 11/3!

https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/6704b2b8dd02d60047462b6c

It takes bravery these days to talk about a serious and stigmatized mental illness like bipolar disorder. In the rural prairie of the 1950s, it took a courageous spirit and audacity I can’t even begin to fathom. The short film Something Went Click, created by Caryn Cline, uses as its centerpiece an interview with her mother about the onset of her bipolar disorder during this singular time and setting. “Something went click” for her mother one day, and she immediately thought about killing herself.

Something Went Click stands out as having a unique look even amongst other experimental shorts we’ve screened in the festival.  It was rephotographed from a singular gesture from a video interview with the filmmaker’s mother onto high con film (Kodak 3378), then she developed cyanotypes and optically-printed (including direct bi-packing with leaves) those sequences onto Kodak 50D. The use of the stuttering image, the captions setting the scene for the sparse countryside population, and the haunting recorded voice-over are all evocative of both the confusion of such a momentous breakdown and the dismissive attitude of the community at the time, culminating in an hours-long drive to see a psychiatrist who just gave the advice, which I’ll always remember now, to “take more naps.”

Watch Something Went Click for FREE in Shorts Block No. 2 of the virtual festival, streaming until 11/3!

https://watch.eventive.org/mentalfilmness2024/play/66f084de37280200a77ffdfc

What to watch in the virtual fest: I can’t believe I unfortunately made a mistake with this film as well and forgot to slot it in even though it’s one of my favorites, so I definitely wanted to highlight it. Gently Down the Stream is one of the most distinctive films I’ve seen about bipolar disorder, a topic near and dear to my heart, in the festival. I think a lot of its originality and odd tonal shifting is derived through a cultural lens I don’t fully understand by the Chinese writer-director-producer Lipei “Allison” Yu, but it works perfectly for this particular illness. It’s much less dour than many films on this topic, at times almost celebrating manic thinking and its ability to jump around and make interesting connections and colorful perceptions. There’s even a quirky musical number and a scene that breaks the fourth wall.

The performances from the young women in the film are sad and poetic in their naivete and promise never fulfilled, and they typify the kind of women the director said inspired the film. Young, brilliant women others struggled to understand, whose lives ended just as they were about to really start. The film’s attitude about this phenomenon feels different from so many I’ve seen, in that there is just a radical acceptance that this is sometimes a natural result of the bipolar lifecycle. As the director says in her statement, “A life can be long or short, but it’s splendid nevertheless.”

You will not want to miss the completely unique short film Gently Down The Stream, now playing in Shorts Block No. 5 and closing out the virtual festival.

https://watch.eventive.org/…/play/6704b2b8dd02d60047462b6c