Cinema as a tool to question ourselves and explain ourselves to the community
The Sant Joan de Déu Health Park , through the project " Searching for one's own gaze ", has promoted the creation of twelve short documentary films made by people with various mental health problems, under the direction and coordination of filmmaker Laura Álvarez.
The films, available on the Filmin platform, are the culmination of a creative and therapeutic process that has been carried out for ten months, through workshops in which participants have been able to grow their artistic skills, while exploring how cinema can be a tool for expression, empowerment and strengthening self-esteem . "It has been a long process, an intense and exciting journey in which we have all learned a lot," said Álvarez during the presentation of the project at the last edition of the Brain Film Fest, where some of the short films were screened.
"Searching for one's own gaze" collects the sensations, experiences, daily life and most intimate thoughts of people who, through a camera, have wanted to capture who they are, how they see the world or what worries them. Thus, among the pieces, Àgueda talks to us about what it means to live with serious memory problems; Àlex invites us to enter his imaginary world so closely related to video games; César lets us look with his eyes at what he sees around him; or Luke shares his reflections on life and death through very suggestive images. In this sense, Álvarez also wanted to highlight the introspective element in the entire creative process and how therapeutic accompaniment has been important in order to be able to "go deeper into oneself, into what it is that we want to explain and why it is important to explain it". For this reason, during the workshops, the creators have been accompanied at all times by the professional teams of the Health Park , for whom this experience also provides them with a new perspective on the recovery process, with cinema as a central element.
The project collects the sensations, experiences, daily lives and most intimate thoughts of people who, through a camera, have wanted to capture who they are, how they see the world or what worries them.
The initiative, which is part of the art and community program of the Sant Joan de Déu Health Park, Torrents d'Art , and which has received the support of the Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises of the Generalitat, has several objectives, including promoting the internal dialogue of the participants through the language of cinema, thus promoting their recovery and autonomy ; but also promoting their participation in the artistic and cultural life of the environment and contributing to the destigmatization of people with mental health problems .
This was explained during the presentation by Antoni Serrano, director of the Mental Health Network of the Sant Joan de Déu Health Park, who emphasized that "this project is further confirmation of the line of work that the institution has been developing for years with art as one of the axes of self-exploration by users and as a path to recovery". He added: "It is not easy to be in a moment of fragility or vulnerability and have enough strength to start a story that you can tell the outside world about yourself , and I think that this is also very empowering and can be an interesting part of the recovery process".
You can view the documentaries from the project "Searching for Your Own Perspective " through this link .
Featuring
