Humans are story-telling creatures. By thinking, we all unconsciously "author" a self-story in our heads. Most often, the characters and plot of our story is framed by negative experiences from childhood. These painful "stories" then determine our emotions, leading to unhealthy stress, and changes in body chemistry. This is how a person's self-story can turn into a stress-related illness.
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Self
Marion is an artist with FSH, an incurable muscular myopathy. She guides us on the path she has taken to no longer identify with her illness.
When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.
The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.
Is there a mental health crisis in agriculture in Colorado? Farming and ranching has become increasingly difficult over the years. An industry that is typically viewed as romantic, hardworking, and "salt-of-the earth" is actually a job full of tremendous stress outside of anyone's control. Combine that with the enormous generational pressure to continue the family farm, and you have a large group of people that are suffering silently. How do we take care of those that are taking care of us?
The Wait to Nowhere: When a Crisis Goes Untreated reveals an unspeakable reality: children living in the ER for days, weeks and even months at a time, awaiting dedicated care. This film explores the issue and touches on solutions. True stories are told by those living this nightmare, including hospitals that are caught up in a failed system, while lawmakers help lay out a plan to address the crisis before even more children’s lives are lost.
In the underground world of diffing, a community finds solace in their passion, as they navigate personal struggles and challenges both on and off the road.
Three perspectives on loneliness, how it feels and how it can be survived: “If I could just dance with somebody once more.”
Connecting the Dots takes on the subject of mental health through the voices of young people around the world.
Crownsville Hospital: From Lunacy to Legacy is a feature-length documentary film highlighting the history of the Crownsville State Mental Hospital in Crownsville, MD.
In Fear, documentary filmmaker Michiel van Erp creates a collage of inhabitants of the city of Amsterdam who struggle with various anxiety disorders. Today, more patients with anxiety disorders seek professional help than those who suffer from depression, making anxiety the number one mental illness in the Netherlands. This film will show how a small number of those patients attempt to overcome their fears, in order to get on with their lives in the crowded cosmopolitan city that Amsterdam is today.
Due to the measures taken by the government, students have fewer and fewer prospects for a meaningful future. Life is on pause and society is kept in fear. The confidence in a bright future is gone. Even after 18 months, there is still no light at the end of the tunnel. The many promises have not yet changed this situation. In this moving documentary, young people give an idea of the impact of the measures on their lives. Is there still hope or has the damage already been done?
In the spotlight of global media coverage, the first transgender woman ever to perform as Don Giovanni in a professional opera, makes her historic debut in one of the reddest states in the U.S.
When the Cows Come Home introduces audiences to Tilly and Maggie, a pair of cows that musician, journalist, artist and cow whisperer, Andrew Johnstone has befriended and subsequently saved from slaughter. The garrulous herdsman is enthusiastic to expound his views on animal husbandry, bovine communication and the vagaries of life in general, before the film walks us back through the events that have shaped the singular farmer-philosopher. From personal family tragedy to warring with Catholic school authorities, innovating in Hamilton’s nascent music scene to creating guerrilla art installations; Johnstone’s life has had a truly idiosyncratic trajectory. Mental health issues may have seen him retreat to life on the farm, but the film makes clear its subject’s restless inquisitiveness is far from being put out to pasture.
At the age of 16, Alice was a victim of abuse. Fifty years later, this repressed experience unexpectedly makes its way back into her conscience. How is it possible to repress an incident for one’s entire life? How did it happen that she made films and wrote books always about children and violence? Alice walks with her accordion through the desert, searching for answers, looking at a phenomenon that affects many women in a similar or related way.
There is a strong link between singing and mental illness. This documentary tries to break down some prejudices by focusing on the music industry environment. To achieve this feat of awareness, without falling into moralization, popular artists from here lend themselves to the game of this therapy.
This documentary follows the lives of several extraordinary people who have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder. Through personal interviews, viewers learn about the symptoms, emotions, and challenges these people face and about the treatments available to help people on their road to recovery.
After being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a young mother writes a letter to her daughter about their family’s collective journey to acceptance.
An exploration of the interconnected experiences of queerness and illness, this film navigates personal and collective journeys through medical spaces, sexual violence, and survival, displays the profound impact on body and identity.
Using a variety of sources, SPYRAL follows one bipolar woman and the impact it has on her family.