The Voices of Mental Health Track shines light on the experiences of people impacted by mental health conditions.  

For more information, contact: heather @ portlandfilm . org

Back to Press Page

ASSETS:

Shorts:
Heart Swell
Little Hurts
All You Want To Know
Metal
Love You, Mama
Chatter
13TH STEPPING

Features:
HIDE
I Am We
Millennial With A Cane
Nobody knows Casper
Oliver & the Pool
Silent Beauty
Anxious Nation
Breakthrough: A Mental Health Journey
Our Turn to Talk

Back to Press Page

SUMMARIES:

Heart Swell – Amber fears drowning in her own emotions after a half-hearted suicide attempt. During a fraught trip to the beach with her mother, she encounters her inner child and learns to swim in the depths of her memories, confronting a rape that she never grieved. Narrative Short. Directed by Kimberly Bautista. 7.27 min. USA. World Premiere

Little Hurts – An errand at the dry cleaners unleashes a free-for-all of fat-shaming, body image demons and family dieting obsessions. Animation Short. Directed by Debra Solomon. 10.30 min. USA. Portland Premiere

All you want to know – After realizing that she had been sexually assaulted, Sasha has flashbacks to different moments in her life and discovers how her past actions were results of the traumatic event. Narrative Short. Directed by Laurel Kulow. 8.10 min. USA. World Premiere

Metal – A grieving grandfather takes up graffiti to overcome the loss of his grandson, a talented graffiti artist.. Narrative Short. Directed by Mischa Simon Webley. 20 min. USA. Festival Premiere

Love You, Mama – After the sudden death of her father, a young woman becomes haunted by the uncertainty of the world around her. Narrative Short. Directed by Alexandra Magistro. 20 min. Canada. Festival Premiere

Chatter – A husband tries to prepare a surprise for his wife’s birthday while struggling with his mental health. His thoughts eventually overwhelm him and spill out from his mental into his physical space. He fears that his inability to control his emotions only burden and slow those around him. Narrative Short. Directed by An Da & Connor Truax. 13.48 min. USA. Portland Premiere

13th Stepping – 13TH STEPPING follows Lily, a freshly sober actress with an insatiable appetite for escaping her unbearable reality. A provocative glimpse into addiction and redemption wrapped up in a dark comedy-drama. Welcome to the Saturday Night Alive Group of Alcoholics Anonymous. Hang on tight. Recovery is a bumpy ride. Narrative Short. Directed by Emily Ruhl. 17.50 min. USA. World Premiere

Hide – Isolated during pandemic lockdown, a resilient wife fights back against her husband’s emotional gaslighting and escalating abuse, confronting dread, fear, shame, and doubt to escape. (Psychological Thriller). Narrative Feature. Directed by Ben Samuels. 87 min. Canada. Portland Premier

I AM We – Willow comes to terms with her diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. Her journey takes her on a path of reckoning about the abuse she endured as a child, which caused the disorder. She pieces together the narrative of her life, which is fragmented into more than 40 personalities. Each carry their own memories and experiences from Denise’s life and she is working to understand who she is and what happened to her as a child.. Documentary Feature. Directed by Ron Davis. 95 min. USA. West Coast Premiere

Millennial With A Cane – A young-adult MS patient joins an “invisible illness” support group, which helps her cope with her disease. Narrative Feature. Directed by L. Tanner Smith. 88 min. USA. West Coast Premiere

Nobody Knows Casper – Finding your place in the fast-paced internet life quickly becomes all-consuming. Documentary. Directed by René Odgaard. 72m. Denmark. International Premiere.

Oliver & the Pool – Oliverio sets the urn that contains his father’s ashes on the table next to the poolside chaise lounge. He grabs his phone and types in a word: aneurism. Oliverio’s father died during a family dinner, just after his parents announced that they were getting divorced. His mother already had a new man in her life. Oliverio, a 13-year-old only child, installs himself on the chaise lounge and decides that he will stay right there. From that very spot he continues his life – mourning, observing, learning to forgive, and falling in love. Narrative Feature. Directed by Arcadi Palerm-Artis. 100 min. Mexico. Oregon Premiere

Silent Beauty – SILENT BEAUTY is a personal documentary that follows Director Jasmin López as she works to heal from child sexual abuse she endured at the hands of her grandfather, Gilberto, almost thirty years ago. In the process of sharing her own trauma with her large family, Jasmin learns that generations of children in her family were victims of the same abuse. Told from the director’s perspective, SILENT BEAUTY is a film about confronting and accepting difficult truths while finding beauty in the process. Documentary Feature. Directed by Jasmin Mara López. 88 min. USA. Portland Premiere

Anxious Nation – Over the past three decades, the biggest public health threats to teenagers in the United States came from binge drinking, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy and smoking. Today, these have been replaced by soaring rates of mental health disorders—especially anxiety. In a rare public advisory in early 2022, the U.S. surgeon general warned of a devastating mental health crisis among adolescents, creating a national emergency. Like pouring gasoline on an already out of control inferno, anxiety and its impact were intensely exacerbated by the pandemic. Documentary Feature. Directed by Vanessa Roth & Laura Morton. 100 min. USA.Portland Premiere

Breakthrough: A Mental Health Journey – A documentary that shares the story of several individuals showing their battles and experiences with Mental Health and the stigma around it. Documentary Feature. Directed by Josh Painter. 76 min. USA. World Premiere

Our Turn to Talk – Even before the pandemic, more than 1 in 3 high school students said they felt sad and hopeless. COVID-19 made everything worse. This is their story. Documentary. Directed by Beth Murphy and Patrice Howard. 60m. USA. West Coast Premiere.

ASSETS

[modula id=”4233″]

Back to Press Page