Calling all teens attending L.A. County high schools. If you’ve got a creative eye and a cell phone, The Open Mind Film Festival for Mental Health wants your stories.
Presented by The Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, this film festival contest seeks short films highlighting students’ unique experiences and concerns around mental health.
Themes can include living with mental illnesses, reducing the stigma of mental illness and ways mental health issues impact high school students.
The Friends is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people with mental illness. It supports research into innovative treatments and sponsors educational programs to raise awareness and erase stigma. Among other initiatives, The Friends sponsors and produces the Open Mind, a lecture and film series that brings together leaders in science and culture to present programs about mental health.
Film festival winners will be selected by a panel of judges composed of UCLA Film School faculty and students, Friends of The Semel Institute Board members, entertainment industry professionals and Semel Institute faculty. In addition to a best picture award, the judging panel will award other honors in various categories based on the submissions received
The deadline for film submissions is Feb. 15, and the film festival will take place May 6. Select films will be screened at The James Bridges Theater on the UCLA campus, if in-person meetings are safe at that time. If not, screenings will be virtual.
For more information about the Open Mind Film Festival, visit FilmFreeway.com/OpenMindFilmFestival or email OpenMindFilmFest@gmail.com.
