Documenting with Intention and Care
Filmmaking and Mental Health Advocacy
About This Project
We're proud to share a collection of 7 short films created by our own Health Equity Ambassadors and Recovery Café members—shining a light on real experiences in our community.
In Bartholomew County, 26% of residents experience fair or poor mental health compared to 13% of the nation. Behind these statistics are real people navigating real barriers in systems that weren't built with them in mind. This filmmaking project was about shifting who gets to tell these stories and how they're told.
Each film was produced and co-created by local residents and advocates—many of whom stepped behind the camera for the very first time—to share stories that inspire healing, connection, and change.
The Smile in the Fog: The Mental-Dental Connection
Themes: Health equity, childhood health, total body wellness, community education, preventive care
Using creative storytelling, this film explores the connection between dental health and total body health, including mental health. The message: you don't need magic to help others, just powerful knowledge and compassion. Also, when someone experiences dental pain, listen with understanding—because dental health and mental health are deeply connected.
How Do You Do It?
Themes: Recovery pathways, peer support, lived experience as expertise, mindset work, compassion
Ruth shares her journey navigating major depression, using mindset work and emotional regulation strategies to overcome challenges and help others bounce back from their own. Drawing on her experiences—including moments she's not proud of—she's built understanding and compassion for others facing mental health challenges. This film explores the power of peer support and the practice of separating difficult moments from one's whole life.
Hope Exists
Themes: Reducing stigma, normalizing mental health care, peer support, health equity
A candid conversation about getting help for mental health challenges. Drawing parallels between seeking care for physical health and mental health, this film addresses the stigma that keeps people from accessing support. Stephen, a veteran, reflects on his own experiences with PTSD, anxiety, and depression—and why reaching out for help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Bridging The Gap: A Lived Experience in Action
Themes: Systems change, lived experience leadership, community health equity, career transitions, coming full circle
A community member returns to the hospital where they were born—now working to strengthen mental health systems in Columbus, Indiana. This film follows their work with MHM’s Healthy County Release team, creating connections between service providers across the full spectrum of mental health support. Through entrepreneurship and lived experience, they're building the infrastructure their community needs.
Recovery Café
Themes: Peer community, recovery support, belonging, mutual aid, safe spaces
Inside Recovery Café, community members describe what this space means to them: friendship, support, belonging, and a solid foundation in recovery. People share why they come—whether for camaraderie, to run something by a friend, or to be part of a community that shows up for one another. For those who arrived feeling angry, hurt, scared, and alone, Recovery Café has become essential—more than meetings, it's a place of connection and mutual support.
The Power of Support
Themes: Community building, collective action, mental health ambassadors, partnership development, mutual learning
MHM Health Equity Ambassadors reflect on the relationships they've formed through this work. By showing up for each other's events and creating partnerships across organizations—like with the Algan County Public Library Express—they've built new communities within communities. Ambassadors describe how the training informed not just their advocacy work, but their own mental health practices. This is what happens when passionate people connect around shared purpose.
Beautiful Therapy
Themes: Art as therapy, creative expression, mental health recovery, community healing, vulnerability in sharing, public art
Artists, poets, and community members explore how creativity serves as mental health support alongside—and sometimes beyond—traditional therapy and medication. From painting through depressive episodes to writing poetry that transforms isolation into connection, people share how making art becomes a way to unburden themselves from what they don't want to carry anymore. The film weaves together voices from open mics, visual artists, and writers who've discovered that creating beauty isn't about perfection—it's about turning pain into something they can put down and pick up when they choose. Public art becomes public health. The process of making becomes the healing.
Impact
These films remind us that mental health is health—and when we tell our stories with intention and care, we move closer to understanding, equity, and hope.
The conversations sparked by these films continue. Together, we're creating dialogue, reflection, and action toward the mental health systems and community support our county deserves.
Project Partners
Mental Health Matters
Leading community-driven mental health advocacy and systems change work in Bartholomew County
Columbus Area Arts Council (CAAC)
Made this collaborative project possible. Special thanks to Brooke Hawkins for partnership throughout.
Ian Carstens, Filmmaker
Midwest filmmaker who trained Ambassadors in ethical documentary practices and produced the final films
YES Cinema and Conference Center
Provided the space for our World Premiere during YES Fest 2025. Special thanks to Randy Allman and Diane Doup.
