Description:
With unprecedented access to families, courts, and psychiatric and correctional institutions, the filmmakers followed several families to document the tragic results of a catastrophic decline in the availability of appropriate mental health services for young people. From everyday family and developmental stresses to severe, clinical mental illness, these families are struggling to get the supports they need, but there is very little help available to them. Cesar, a young Hispanic boy is severely depressed and has threatened to kill himself. His mother is afraid to take him home, but there is no treatment bed available for him. Raised by her grandmother, Antonia tried to cut her wrists after her mother failed to appear for a mother 's day visit. She has also attempted to overdose on Zoloft. Jeremy threatened his stepmother and injured his younger brother. Unable to afford the cost of a psychiatric placement, his father seeks to relinquish his parental rights, so that the state will be responsible for his care. The judge refuses. One in ten children and adolescents in the United States suffer severe mental illness. The rate of suicide for teens fifteen to nineteen in the USA has nearly tripled since 1960.

Biography:
In 1999, Karen Bernstein and Ellen Spiro formed Mobilus Media to initiate groundbreaking documentary projects. They recently produced and directed the PBS documentary Troop 1500: Girl Scouts Beyond Bars. Bernstein won a national Emmy award in 1999 as producer of Ella Fitzgerald: Something to Live For and a Grammy award in 1998 as producer of the documentary Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart. Spiro has directed and produced documentaries that have been broadcast worldwide. In 2004, she received the Guggenheim Fellowship. She has also received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts.

Contact Information:
Nicole K. Johnson
Publicity Coordinator
Fanlight Productions
4196 Washington St., Suite 2
Boston, MA 02131
nicole@fanlight.com
www.fanlight.com

FILMS

America's Brutal Prisons
Are the Kids Alright?
Baghdad ER
Between Two Stones: Nepal's Decade of Conflict
Beyond Iraq
Beyond the Call
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Blowing Up Paradise
Busting Out
Bystander
Epitaph
In the Tall Grass
Independent Intervention
Interview with an Executioner
La Sierra
Lessons in Fear
Lima's Streets
Malaria: Killer Number One
The Man Who Saved a Million Brains
The Peacekeepers
Pilgrimage
Rights on the Line: Vigilantes at the Border
Rosita
The Shape of Water
Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars
Small Town Gay Bar
They Chose China
Thin
The Tribe
True Whispers
The Tsunami Generation