Mental Health, No Laughing Matter

Desiree Fabian | Staff Writer

Illustration by Desiree Fabian

 The SMC Film Department’s faculty and students and the Center for Wellness and Wellbeing host a film screening to bring awareness to the struggle of mental health.

Following the end of Suicide Prevention Month in September, the Santa Monica College (SMC) Department of Communications and Media/Film Production and the Center for Wellness and Wellbeing (CWW) organized a film screening of “Never Silly” on Tuesday, Oct. 3. The short film, created during 2020 when tensions were high with pandemic lockdowns, has an important message about suicide and suicide prevention.

The 10-minute-long production aims to spread awareness of the internal and external struggle that piggybacks on battling a mental health issue. As stated by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one out of every five people in the U.S. is affected by a mental health struggle in their lifetime– equivalent to around 50 million people. 

In battling these issues, identifying the signs can become a skill of significant necessity. The acknowledgment of combating such difficulties has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the stigma surrounding these tolls remains unchanged.

“First of all, let's address the pain,” Simone Bartesaghi, an SMC Communications and Film Department Professor said. “Whether it’s the sources, whether it’s the causes, let's address that element, then the causes probably will become easier to deal with and accessible once we remove the distortion that pain brings to reality, and that's kind of the mindset or the story that is called Never Silly.”

What started as a student assignment flipped into a challenge for Bartesaghi, the award-winning filmmaker behind the story “Never Silly.” Pulling from a personal place, Simone wrote the short film and produced it with the participation from his students in Intermediate Digital Filmmaking. 

Initially released in 2022, the film portrays the message, “It’s never silly if it hurts.” Bartesaghi was present at the screening and shared the idea behind the film screening.

“The goal was to bring awareness to a side subject about mental illness that’s related to how we perceive these issues as people from outside,” Bartesaghi said.

Through a partnership between the SMC Media/Film Department and the CWW, the goal is to do future projects for outreach across SMC campuses.

Marianna Oganesyan, who advises the Active Minds Student Club and manages mental health services on both the main SMC campus and its satellite campuses, shared her thoughts on the event's message and importance.

“Since students can feel very isolated and not included with everything that's going on on the main campus, we do think having the film screening on our satellite campuses, particularly CMD, and tabling with our active mind students and passing out the resources could be a really great way to support our students,” said Oganesyan. “In having these events, I think what it really does is it destigmatizes the shame and guilt associated with feeling not okay– it’s okay not to be okay.”

Active Minds is a non-profit organization that supports mental health awareness and education for young adults. The Active Minds Student Club on campus won the National Healthy Campus Award in 2020 but dissolved over time during the pandemic. Now reestablished, the club hopes to become more involved in the community.

Ulises Diaz, a first-year SMC student studying aerospace engineering in the STEM program, attended the event after passing out fliers outside the venue. As an advocate for change and Vice President of the Active Minds Club, Diaz feels that speech and action matter in the process of offering and accepting help.

“I want to be able to be a part of the process where they get out of that, like, trouble they’re in,” said Diaz. “The main reason why people don't like speaking out is because they're afraid that others wouldn’t take them seriously. Don’t care what other people think, care more about yourself and what you think.”

“Never Silly”  will be screened at the 22nd Urban Mediamakers Film Festival (UMFF) at Georgia Gwinnett College in Georgia on Oct. 20.