Mental Health

We approach Halloween, a festival for commemoratin So this post will follow a brief history of attempts to bring order to the chaos of human existence. As for the question that ended the previous post, is this such a surprise when humans kill their own species over six times more than mammals on average do?ContinueContinue reading

This Christmas I was so sad to see Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, a ghost town due to the Israel-Gaza conflict. With the UN High Commissioner for Refugees warning of the ‘world’s current extreme disorder’, it came as no surprise when I came across the book End Times (2023) by Peter Turchin. Turchin, a professorContinueContinue reading

Following recent upheaval, I was pleased to find Weekend University lecture by Dr Steve Taylor PhD and Big Issue interview with actor Gabriel Byrne about his new film Death of a Ladies Man, communicating that there is hope or growth in situations of insurmountable challenge, even facing death. According to Dr Taylor this is oneContinueContinue reading

I was inspired to make my short film FREE from my knowledge of human rights issues in the mental health system. The UK government is attempting to address some of these issues this year via its reform of the Mental Health Act. Coincidentally, shortly after I wrote the script, publicity surrounding the #FreeBritney movement appeared inContinueContinue reading

I was able to see my films Letitia and Free on the big screen at the Genesis Cinema, as part of the Raindance Film Festival, which was exciting and a learning experience. I also finally produced a trailer for my very first film Raw Vision, its filming was interrupted by the first coronavirus lockdown, causingContinueContinue reading

This week I sat on my first ever panel discussion for a film festival, arranged by the Awareness Film Festival – they officially selected my film Letitia for 2021. The panel was titled: It’s a Global Thing. The festival usually only screens in Los Angeles, but due to COVID, this year was a hybrid event,ContinueContinue reading

I was lucky enough to film a short documentary just before the UK plunged into its third national lockdown. Titled Letitia, Letitia had also been cast as the spiritualist woman in my short fictional film Raw Vision. Due to the first coronavirus lockdown, that part had to be scrapped. The documentary is investigative style, exploringContinueContinue reading

I have renamed my film Raw Vision, which I think represents better its theme of hallucination. This comes from Raw Vision magazine, specialising in Outsider Art, which has its roots from the art of people committed to mental asylums. Studies show about one fifth of people who regularly have hallucinations are in control of theContinueContinue reading

This week was the read-through of the first draft of our scripts at Raindance. My film script is a story about hallucinations arising through trauma. There were some queries about my characters. One person suggested that mum telling Sofi that she couldn’t live with her anymore, made mum seem like a ‘wicked witch’. Now I definitely don’tContinueContinue reading