Film Categories: Mental Health

  • Keep Both Eyes Open (All the Time)

    Keep Both Eyes Open is an obliquely autobiographical film in three sections. Found footage, home movies, and video processing are used to present matters of family, conflict, legacy, and inheritance. Inspired by the sudden resolution of a familial mystery.

  • Contents under Pressure

    An anxious young party-goer finds love at a party, but after committing a party faux pas, is destroyed in a washing machine accident. From here, the project pivots, self-conscious and needing to recast its hero, who quickly has an existential crisis (“what’s my motivation?”). A poetic, quirky, singular meditation on identity and personal history, populated with the beautiful vistas of Atlantic Canada.

  • Ever Wanting (for Margaret Chung)

    Inspired by San Francisco’s first Chinese American female physician, this film envisions the euphoria and despair of Margaret Chung and her insatiable desire for women and celebrity through her forays into drugs, sapphic surgeries, and queer flights of fancy. Image description: A black-and-white archival image toned warm purple, showing a woman dancing with arms raised to the side and skirt flared out in a circle.

  • Heavy Petting

    A lonely young woman scrambling to fill the void left by a missing household pet forges a strange and tenuous bond with an unexpected visitor role-playing in a cat costume. When the animal returns, the visitor is discarded and returns to life of profound solitude and invisibility, which inspires a macabre test of their social obscurity.

  • Freak Folks

    Struggling with anxious thoughts, six individuals wander alone through the city in the late hours of the night. “Freak Folks” is an introspective and therapeutic experience that celebrates the human resilience and emotional connections between apparent strangers.

  • The Shadow of My Life

    Hanna, a recent immigrant to Canada from Iran, struggles with depression as she tries to process memories of Iran and find her place in a new country. As she rediscovers her passion for painting she finds inspiration from other artists. Told in graphic monochrome animation with occasional striking splashes of red. Image description: A graphic drawing in stark black-and-white depicts a woman and her shadow considering themselves in a mirror.

  • fuck

    A short solo film made in quarantine, “fuck” is part silent meditation, part protest, part magic spell for a better world.

  • Still Got It?!

    After 3 years out of the modeling industry and back in school, Adam wonders: “Have I still got it?” Ignoring the not-so-subtle warnings from his friends, our endearingly oblivious protagonist confidently decides to give modelling another shot and sets up a meeting with an agency. What follows is a series of failures, wake-up calls, and a surprising new path of self-discovery.

  • An Open Conversation

    “An Open Conversation” is a short story about the effects of pregnancy loss. In this introspective narrative, Idalina shares her own story of miscarriage and explores what her losses have meant to her. Fueled by the shame and lack of support she encountered she sets out to support others who have suffered through pregnancy loss and make it an open conversation.

  • Women of Resilience

    Women who have survived war, abuse, displacement and loss share their paths to resilience. 4 stories. 1 central thread – relationship makes us resilient. This documentary celebrates resilience in older women, who have lived through trauma and healed. The film features 4 older women who have gone through abuse, wars, prejudices and trauma, and they healed through relationship. The thesis is that human beings are designed to heal, and trauma interrupts that design. Secure attachment -a relationship within which someone feels loved, seen and valued- can repair the break and restore the healing design of the human brain and body.…