A huge THANK YOU to everyone who came out through heavy rain and traffic to the Douglass Branch Library today to see local filmmaker Cortez Mack do his thing at our Community Healing Film Screening & Discussion. I always wish for a bit of a larger audience but actually the intimate group we had led to some meaningful discussion where I felt like every person in the room got to speak at some length and open up a bit personally, which was really special. Flourish Chicago provided some information about free memory assessments and Alzheimer’s Disease and contributed a lot of valuable information to the conversation. They also brought an abundance of goodies including organic fruit as at least a few people pointed out diet can be a huge contributor to dementia.
Cortez Mack’s short films are all publicly available on Youtube and he encourages people to seek out and share them there. He is clearly a filmmaker who is motivated by passion and the conversation surrounding his films. We have a bit of a history as he submitted his short film “Bobby” to Mental Filmness around 2020 and though we did not select it then, he reached out to me again. I’m so glad he did because there could have been any number of reasons why the jury did not select it that year, and I have circled back around to things before and love showcasing local filmmakers whenever possible.
I think it all panned out as it should in the end because the year he submitted was an all-virtual one and his films are really best seen in the context of the conversations surrounding them. One thing I said during our conversations is that I have developed a more expansive view of mental health over the years and I can now see how the three short films he screened fit together as a mental health showcase highlighting issues prevalent within the black community such as dementia, disconnection of the family, and father-son relationships. Cortez Mack thinks of the films as healing films, addressing topics that people don’t always talk about and providing a chance to open up and connect. I feel like our audience, even when small, always has amazing discussions and these were among the best I’ve seen.
Huge thanks again to Cortzez Mack, Flourish Chicago, the Douglass Branch of the Chicago Public Library for hosting, and the library’s African American Heritage Committee for sponsoring this special program.
On Thursday evening, May 9th, I and others were treated to the Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab 2024 Fellows’ Film Premiere. The Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab (PPSL) for the Promotion of Mental Health via Cinematic Arts is a sort of specialty film class that operates out of Northwestern University, where students create films with representations of mental illness or mental health that challenge stereotypes. As such I consider it to be a spiritual sister to the mission of Mental Filmness and I definitely felt that vibe at the screening I attended.
I believe PPSL was getting started around the same time as Mental Filmness was (in 2019, which it turned out wasn’t a great time to start something), and though they had many high-profile guests and some student works screened, this is the first completed showcase of films that was screened to the public to my knowledge. It packed out the theater in the Annie May Swift Hall at Northwestern.
These films were very accomplished shorts by any measure, let alone for students and first-time filmmakers. The short films explored their themes of mental health with a distinctive personal lens, respect and empathy, and nuance.
The program consisted of the following shorts:
Steering (dir. Luluh Abathra, 7 min.) – A simple yet evocative portrait of a grieving brother whose plans are interrupted by a wounded rat, causing him to turn his emotional journey inward and reflect. Director Luluh Abathra captured one of those slice-of-life pieces about experiencing a moment that was realistic and thought-provoking, and also got a chance to experiment with special effects.
Maladaptive (dir. Petra Popper-Freedman, 10 min.) – A short about maladaptive daydreaming disorder. Vivid daydreams continually distract a young woman from a first date to the point where she begins to isolate her potential partner—until she ends up pulling her date back in by beginning to actually describe the disorder and the daydreams. I loved that there was no easy solution to this situation, though, because after the confession the line between reality and daydream became even more blurred. This short did what my favorite films of this type do; it used humor to help the audience relate to the main character without undermining the seriousness of her condition. Director Petra Popper-Freedman did an impressive job playing the young woman with enough charm to make her situation sympathetic.
Growing Mad in the Midwest (dir. Elshadi Aberra, 11 min.) – This film about growing up in a large Ethiopian-American family in the Midwest, and feeling disconnected, featured skillful editing of a lot of home videos to depict familial relationships. The atmospheric footage captured what the filmmaker Elshadi Aberra called the “fragmentation of memory.” I feel like in a short period of time Aberra effectively created an impression that left you with a portrait of her childhood and how in some ways having a big family can give you a feeling of profound loneliness.
Ponytail (dir. Aisha Hamid, 19 mins.) – This quiet, subtle film about the connection between a Pakistani-American daughter and her father demonstrated a great amount of maturity and perception in letting its narrative patiently unfold. It truly felt like it was drawn from life and according to the director Aisha Hamid she used her personal experience to create it. It was one of those heartfelt stories that added more dimensions to the characters over the time they spent revealing themselves to each other, ultimately leading to some unexpected discoveries for both of them.
Quicksand (dir. Naya Hemphill, 15 min.) – This film felt similar in some ways to a short film called “Birdie” we screened last year, which also tackled the topic of maternal depression. It tells the story of a young mother and it begins by suggesting she is expected to be missing her kids while they spend a long weekend apart. Instead, the young woman struggles with her mental health in a different way, grappling with depression about her lost opportunities. The skillful acting and narrative devices that the director Naya Hemphill used in this film conveyed the mood quite effectively.
Manic Memoirs (dir. Francesca Gamba, 8.5 min.) – I’ve made no secret here and elsewhere that I have a special place in my heart for films about manic episodes since they speak to my own experience and diagnosis. The director and actress Francesca Gamba captures the insidious onset of mania quite well. One minute, you’re charming people with your fearlessness, impulsiveness, and impromptu singing. Next, you’re doing the same thing in a library study group and everyone’s staring back at you with a mixture of fear and concern. What happened in between? In a brief span of time this talented filmmaker shows the main character piecing together what happened and accepting responsibility for it. Francesca Gamba said in the Q & A later that she is a musician and her sense of sound helped depict the character’s struggle with mania. This is an experience close to her family.
Doh, God! (dir. Nathan Siskel, 6 min.) – The only animated film of the batch, Doh, God! might also have the honor of being the only short film to illustrate an existential crisis with the use of Play-Doh. In the film’s plot a child named Lily begins to feel a depression and listlessness that makes it difficult for her to get out of bed, and it escalates when she starts to question the meaning of the world around her. The creator Nathan Siskel skillfully employed the tactile use of Play-Doh to add some light silliness to the film (such as the bouncing snowman father figure) as well as to depict the heaviness of sadness, such when Lily has to shake off the parts of her bedding that stuck to her while she was asleep. Despite using something silly to convey something deep, this short leaves quite an impression (pun intended).
Avant-Garde (dir. Hank Yang, 16 min.) – Films about the therapeutic nature of art are also very near and dear to my heart. Avant-Garde is an observational narrative short about an obsessive technical perfectionist artist and his encounter with another artist who is more loose, messy, and abstract, but also surer of herself. The actors embrace their roles with expressions and postures that say it all with their diametrically opposed body language, one clenched and rigid, and the other laid-back and lackadaisical. Filmmaker Henry Yang is a visual artist and used some of his own art in the film, which he explained is partially about his own anxious perfectionism, adding another layer of realism.
The filmmakers gathered onto the stage for a Q & A after the screening and an audience member asked them what it was like having these films, which were so deeply personal and based on a theme about mental health, screened for an audience for the first time. It was a vulnerable and brave move for all of these students, and they were all so open and insightful when responding to questions and explaining their films. It was also clear that not only did this experience enrich them and guide them through the process of making a finished film, but the students had bonded with each other by helping out on each others’ films. The new director of Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab, Ines Sommer, is an associate professor in film and television at Northwestern University with a background in documentary filmmaking who has also been heavily involved in supporting and advocating for Midwestern filmmakers. She seems to have done a stellar job in taking on the leadership of this film program. This screening event was well-organized, well-attended, and most importantly, it created a feeling of community surrounding cinema and mental health. I plan to keep an eye on the Pritzker Pucker Studio Lab and perhaps find a way to collaborate in the future.
Submissions opened the first of the year for the sixth annual Mental Filmness film festival. Though it’s a nonprofit grassroots festival, it’s grown over the years and slowly built more and more of an audience and a community. I can tell because we’ve already received 10 submissions (!) when I think our standard around this time of year used to be 2 or 3. In fact, that means there’s been a submission for every day of the year so far!
We’ve never had trouble getting submissions. I was genuinely surprised how easy it was to set up a Filmfreeway account and just start receiving submissions covering different aspects of mental health, from different views and cultures, in different genres, from all over the world. It truly is a wonder. I never had to advertise it, people just found us, or were referred to us. We still receive so many films every year that there are some tough decisions to make for the limited spaces we have to show them.
Here’s the general deal for submission:
“Mental Filmness is a Chicago-based film festival showcasing films about mental health. The festival is dedicated to breaking the stigma surrounding mental health by sharing stories and promoting empathy for those who live with a chronic mental health disorder or those who have experienced a mental health issue.
We define “mental health” as a broad umbrella that encompasses any issue related to our emotional, psychological, and social well-being, or our overall mental fitness.
Mental Filmness is now a hybrid festival, with live screenings hosted in Chicago and virtual screenings hosted by the Eventive platform. Both parts of the festival begin on or around World Mental Health Day on October 10; the virtual festival is typically open for streaming throughout the month of October.
Selection of your film ensures it a place in our virtual festival. We will be able to screen a limited number of films in Chicago and that could be a possibility as well, though not guaranteed.”
And here are some addenda:
PROGRAMMING
~~While I’d still like to keep some sort of virtual festival running to reach a wider audience, I am attempting to program more live screenings throughout the year to a) meet the filmmakers’ interest in them, b) get more of these films screened, and c) continue to keep an engaged audience and following throughout the year. I’m still going to say for the time being for the modest size and budget of the festival, we cannot guarantee a live screening, but I will track all who are interested and try to reach out during the year if it might be a possibility.
FEES
~~There is a $10 submission fee. This fee helps offset streaming and programming costs for the festival, which is always free, and helps filter entries to those interested in the theme of mental health, but please request a waiver if it is a financial hardship in any way.
~~We love local filmmakers! Please let us know if you live in the Chicago area and can visit us and help build our Chicago audience. Please submit!
~~We screen student shorts! Mental Filmness is a big promoter of fringe, independent, and low to no-budget filmmaking. We showed an amazing youth in mental health shorts block last year with filmmakers as young as sixteen! Film students and young filmmakers and first-time filmmakers are strongly encouraged to apply.
Submissions will be open on Filmfreeway until the summer of 2024 (what, it’s 2024), so spread the news. There’s even time to make a film if you’d like!
