Is Your Story Making You Sick?

Unrest

When Harvard PhD student Jennifer Brea is struck down at 28 by a fever that leaves her bedridden, doctors tell her it’s "all in her head." Determined to live, she sets out on a virtual journey to document her story—and four other families' stories—fighting a disease medicine forgot.

The Bridge

The Bridge is a controversial documentary that shows people jumping to their death from the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco - the world's most popular suicide destination. Interviews with the victims' loved ones describe their lives and mental health.

La santé mentale : Une note à la fois

There is a strong link between singing and mental illness. This documentary tries to break down some prejudices by focusing on the music industry environment. To achieve this feat of awareness, without falling into moralization, popular artists from here lend themselves to the game of this therapy.

The First Woman

Eva’s being allowed to leave the psychiatric institution she’s lived in for six years. After a long year of waiting, the news arrive: an assisted living residence is found for her. Eva takes the first steps towards the "normal" life she longs for: to find a job, earn an income of her own, visit her mother... even find love. While she’s taking stock of her past and works on her self-confidence as well as her trust in the outside world, she also fixes firmly on her main goal: to reconnect with the son she lost custody of 20 years ago and ask him to forgive her. The First Woman is a film about second chances, the search for "normality" and the borderline between lucidity and darkness.

Sicko

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

Obaida

OBAIDA, a short film by Matthew Cassel, explores a Palestinian child’s experience of Israeli military arrest. Each year, some 700 Palestinian children undergo military detention in a system where ill-treatment is widespread and institutionalized. For these young detainees, few rights are guaranteed, even on paper. After release, the experience of detention continues to shape and mark former child prisoners’ path forward.

Divergente

What's wrong with you? Nothing.

Child psychiatry is in a phase of clinical death. Yet there are facilities and doctors who can return children back to their families cured and healthy. That is the path that needs to be taken. The documentary mapping the state of child psychiatric care in the Czech Republic was made by director Jiří Podlipný, Czech Television cooperated with the Vendula Pizingerová Foundation Kapka naděje. Artificial intelligence visualization under the guidance of cinematographer Jiří Studnička allows us to look into the depths of a child's aching soul.

Liyana

A talented group of orphaned children in Swaziland create a fictional heroine and send her on a dangerous quest.

The iron man.

The Iron Man takes us on an introspective journey into the life of Toni, a man who finds in art and nature the essential pillars of his existence. The creation of iron and stone sculptures, together with work in the countryside as a gardener, help him to find beauty in the simplicity of life. His vision of life, as if he were a ‘rural philosopher’, will teach us to break down stigmas about mental health and to look at life from a hopeful perspective.

Jesy Nelson: "Odd One Out"

Little Mix star Jesy Nelson goes on a journey of rehabilitation as she opens up about abuse she has suffered at the hands of cyberbullies and its effects on her mental health.

Preschool to Prison

Preschool to Prison is a compelling examination of how the United States public school system is built and operated like prisons. Zero-tolerance policies are used to justify suspension and arrests that set up a pathway to send children of color and children with special needs from school to prison. Children are being suspended, restrained, dragged, physically manhandled, and subsequently arrested for minor offenses such as throwing candy on a school bus. These personal accounts from people affected by the school-to-prison pipeline give riveting tales about the generational impact on society.

David Harewood: Psychosis and Me

David Harewood had a psychotic breakdown and was sectioned in his 20s. David traces his steps, meeting young people living with psychosis and the NHS professionals who treat them.

Framing Britney Spears

Her rise was a global phenomenon. Her downfall was a cruel national sport. People close to Britney Spears and lawyers tied to her conservatorship now reassess her career as she battles her father in court over who should control her life.

Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency

Roman Kemp: Our Silent Emergency is a deeply personal and candid film following Roman as he explores the mental health and suicide crisis affecting young men in the UK.

Attila

Filmmaker Stephen Hosier takes a journey with Richard Csanyi, his childhood friend, as he investigates the life and death of his twin brother Attila, who was found dead on a rooftop in 2020.

Ben Stokes: Phoenix from the Ashes

From breathtaking highs — a World Cup win, an astonishing last stand in the Ashes, and an inspiring England captaincy — to the lows — a trial for affray, personal tragedy, and mental health challenges, which saw him take time away from the game — the documentary follows Ben Stokes in an honest film about the man behind the extraordinary cricketer.

Emma Wants to Live

This is a Dutch documentary about the last weeks of life in a Portuguese clinic for Emma Caris, a 18 year old girl who had been suffering anorexia nervosa since she was 16 years old.

Aleph

Structured as a labyrinth-like game and inspired by Jorge Luis Borges, Aleph is a travelogue of experience, a dreamer's journey through the lives, experiences, stories and musings of protagonists spanning ten countries and five continents.

AN OCEAN

The trembling starts in his neck when Markus gets closer to the images that have chased him for 49 years. Now he steers his motor home south, as far away from his past as possible.