Screenings

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Polite society says we're not supposed to talk about it.  That is the problem with stereotypes that create Stigma.  It encourages us to hide the very thing that needs the light.  We are committed to end the stigma involving mental health and helping people understand that they are not alone in their suffering, their grief or their frustration at the broken system & policies that do not serve them.

We are making this film to change the conversation around mental illness.  Mental health is something that touches all of our lives, which is what makes it all the more baffling that we talk about it so infrequently and so ineffectively. It is perhaps because mental health problems are so pervasive that we have failed to face it head-on, failed to address it adequately, failed to do anything but push it away into a corner, ignoring it and hoping that it will go away on its own. If you have ever found yourself close to mental health problems, though, then you know that they almost never go away on their own – that they require attention and care, just like any other illness.  The people often walk by on the street without thinking twice are our parents, children, siblings, veterans, teachers, artists....  They are our most vulnerable and this is a subject that desperately needs more attention, empathy and action.

I wrote BROKEN after my family was impacted by a mental health crisis. I began to volunteer at  NAMI where I heard COUNTLESS heartbroken parents, spouses and children share similar stories of their afflicted loved ones.  As I shared my story with friends, many of them confided in me that they too had a loved one (often estranged) that suffered from one of these  conditions. NAMI estimates 1 in 4 adults in America experience a mental illness & nearly 1 in 25 adults in America live with a serious mental illness.  The massive increase in homelessness related to mental illness in America is only one manifestation of a system gone terribly wrong.

Millions of people are suffering in silence and I say that needs to end today.  

My goal with this film is not only to start a conversation but to transform the  conversation from guilt, shame and embarrassment to  empathy, understanding and activism.