How did you first hear about the NYC Mental Health Film Festival?
I have been familiar with the work of Community Access for quite some time, as well as the NYC Mental Health Film Festival. I had never attended the festival prior to 2017, but from afar had always perceived it as a great opportunity for filmmakers and audiences to engage around content and dialogue relating to mental health. So it was a natural fit for Healing Voices, which was produced as a social action film intended to spark new conversations.
How was your experience at the festival? Any takeaways?
We made a choice early on that Healing Voices would be self distributed, which changes the stakes a bit in terms of what we're looking to get out of a festival. For us, the festival circuit was about showing the movie in great venues to engaged audiences. Looking back on the range of those experiences, the results were mixed. But the NYC Mental Health Film Festival was at the top of the list. To screen our movie in a market like New York, at a venue like Village East Cinema, in front of a great audience, was a peak experience. The festival was very well organized and I was impressed by many of the films that were selected.
Tell us about Healing Voices. Why did you feel it was important to make this film?
We made the film in order to create an opening to have a new conversation, both in terms of how we think about and how we respond to mental health issues. Healing Voices follows three subjects over nearly five years, and through their stories demonstrates that the one-size-fits-all approach to mental healthcare that is so embedded here in America, and in many countries around the world, has stripped many people of the humanity and meaning of their experiences. As a culture, I believe we are seeing an epidemic of poor mental health across the board. And that this is a reflection of deeper issues that need to be addressed in society like trauma, inequality, social isolation, racism, the list goes on. By telling people that their feelings or behaviors are the problem, we isolate the problem as residing in the individual. This takes society off the hook. It’s not an easy fix, but advocating that mental health is complex issue that requires hopeful, social solutions, seems like a good place to start, and I believe is much less damaging than telling people that they have a broken brain.
Tell us a little about your next project.
After having some time to reflect on the experience of producing and releasing Healing Voices, I am excited to move onto my next, related film. Healing Voices originally premiered in over 130 communities in eight countries through a grass roots release model that we developed, and has continued to screen all over the world. Having learned some very valuable lessons along the way, our team is eager to replicate the model. The next film is entitled Recovering Addiction: A Public Health Rescue Mission and will be produced and released using the same character driven, partner driven, mission driven template. I believe the epidemic of addiction in America is a reflection of deeper issues that need to be addressed in society, and that we are realizing that responding with more of the same (War on Drugs, moral shaming, etc.) is creating more problems than solutions. This next one feels super important, and I think we are well positioned not only to get the movie produced, but also to get it out there in a way that will make a meaningful social impact.
Check out http://healingvoicesmovie.com/ for more info.