A small collection of short films that had a strong emphasis on mental health issues were shown at a movie night event hosted by Art with Impact.
Seth Pickens who works with Art With Impact hosted the event to bring the Mental Health Movies forum to colleges nationwide. Small discussions with the audience where held along with a panel at the end.
“I’m just a small part of the team but [Art With Impact] is a nationwide non profit organization who put this workshop together in colleges all over the country. For me personally, it’s been a wonderful journey. Just to share the movies to get the conversation up around art and to be with the students on the campus today has been a great process,” Pickens said.
Three short films were shown that focused on different aspects of mental health, such as eating disorders, sexual harassment and childhood trauma.
The first film played was “A to Z” by Fenny Wang and Karishma Antia. “A to Z” is a stop motion film where the protagonist saw hurtful words strung together while eating alphabet soup.
The second film was “Touch Me, Don’t Touch Me” by Lucie Rachel where two men portrayed the raw emotions of sexual harassment through interpretive dance.
The final film was titled “Little Elizabeth” by Elizabeth Ayiku, and gave a representation of acknowledgement and moving on from a traumatic past due to sexual harassment.
With the different types of mental health issues highlighted in each film, attendees discussed and spoke about each theme portrayed through each film.
“It’s critical that we get this word out to the college students about lowering stigma around mental health because college students are old enough to have these difficult conversations. But still young enough to learn, and grow and change. It’s vital that we get stigma reduced on campuses,” Pickens said.
A panel of people who assisted those with mental health issues gathered after the viewing and discussion of each film.
President of the Active Minds club Kristofr Clement was one of the panelists. Clement attended a similar event last semester as an audience member and returned as a panelist for this semester.
“I really like the films. I felt like they gave me different introspective of different struggles that I haven’t gone through which is like, well for me personally, for the movies that were mentioned, like childhood trauma, sexual assault, the eating disorder. I feel like I can sympathize with all the themes to a degree but it makes me aware of how intense people feel in these issues,” Clement said.
At the panel, Clement shared his personal story about his self awareness, coming out and how difficult it was for him to fully accept his sexuality and own persona. Because of his upbringing around Mormon culture, he was only introduced to conservative thinking and beliefs.
“I just hope [the audience] takes away at least take away some understanding of how they are not alone or to be more sensitive or synthetic to the people who may have struggles. I think to expand their minds upon what falls under mental illness because some people it feel like mental health has been thrown around like ‘Oh that’s a separate entity. I don’t have a mental illness or I don’t need a mental wellness,’ Well, in reality, everyone deals with it. It’s a daily thing, it’s essential to being human,” said Clement.
Clement said he believes that feeling stressed or having anxiety toward compulsive behavior is not something to be ashamed of and that there is help out there.
“I would advise people who are seeking out therapies to know to listen to themselves and know what they’re looking for within therapy and what goals they have coming out of it,” Clement said.
“A good resource is the students because if the students know outside resources here in Long Beach or anything local, I feel like that’s a good resource. Students themselves might know more than others about other particular about mental health,” said Maria Rodriguez, the Student Ambassador for Health.
To learn more about mental health or to watch any of the films mentioned, go to https://www.artwithimpact.org/.