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 mental health experiences in our community.
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 with an inspiring reminder: you don't need magic to help others, just powerful knowledge and compassion.
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, she's built understanding and compassion for others facing mental health challenges and offers 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 life with PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Drawing parallels between seeking care for physical health and mental health, this film addresses the stigma that keeps people from accessing and seeking support. Stephen, a veteran, reflects on his own mental health challenges—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
In this video, Vachel shares how he returned home to help build the mental health infrastructure his community needed but didn’t have—connecting fragmented service providers, addressing barriers created by structural racism in mental health systems, and bringing lived experience to equity work.
Recovery Café
Themes: Peer community, recovery support, belonging, mutual aid, safe spaces
Inside Recovery Café Columbus, community members describe what this space means to them: friendship, support, belonging, and a solid foundation in recovery. Community members share why they come—whether for camaraderie, to run something by a friend, or to be part of a family 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 for connection and mutual support.
The Power of Support
Themes: Community building, collective action, mental health ambassadors, partnership development, mutual learning
Oscar and Tiffany, MHM Health Equity Ambassadors, reflect on their work. By showing up for others and creating partnerships across organizations, they've helped build new communities within communities. They describe how training informed not just their advocacy work, but their own mental health practices, and describe the power of passionate people connecting 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. The film weaves together voices from those who've discovered what happens when public art becomes public health, and the process of making becomes 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 and communities deserve.
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.
