I Am Gen Z by Liz Smith
The SHOUT LONDON Ashford Place Mental Health Film & Arts Festival, running 10-11 October at the Kiln Cinema Kilburn and The Crown Hotel Cricklewood to coincide with World Mental Health Day, has announced opening titles and its collaboration with ‘What’s Going On In Your Head’, a series of live events devised by filmmaker and artist Liz Smith that explore the secret inner workings of the mind through performance and discussion.
SHOUT LONDON patron Michelle Collins will open the festival October 10 at The Kiln Cinema before presenting the opening film OCD & Me by Irish filmmaker Adrian McCarthy. This will be followed by a Q&A with the director, who will be flying in from Dublin for the event. Details of the full schedule and showcase are currently being confirmed.
I Am Gen Z is also selected for the festival. Directed by Liz Smith and produced by Chantelle de Carvalho, the film premiered at CPH:DOX 2021 and recently won the award for Best Feature Film at the Lower East Side Film Festival. The documentary explores how the explosion of the digital revolution is impacting our society, our brains and mental health, and how the forces driving it are working against humanity.
The festival will also present the ‘Out & Proud’ photography exhibition by Peter Mirow which raises awareness of the mental health struggles of people who identify as LGBTQIA+. Each subject has been photographed with the colours of the pride flag they identify with. Peter is a self-taught photographer who has used the art of photography to express his ideas and help raise awareness around mental health.
The “stigma-busting hard-hitting audiovisual experience” #BeTheLight from will open Day 2 of the festival at The Crown, London. Directed and edited by Liz Smith and produced by Jon Salmon, the film features performances from artists including Shocka, SK Shlomo, Hyphen and The Castell Brothers. The screening will be followed by a Q & A session with producer Salmon, also a mental health campaigner and co-founder of What’s Going On In Your Head?
Liz Smith comments: “This festival is a unique opportunity for both strands of my work to be presented together. For me, they are not divisible, one informs the other, but this is the first time my documentary filmmaking and the work I do in collaboration with artists under the banner of What’s Going On In Your Head? get to sit together.”
Jon Salmon adds: “What’s Going On In Your Head? uses the power of performance art to open up important conversations around mental health, and I am very excited #BeTheLight will be premiered at Shout London Festival. Our platform is all about promoting artists with lived experience of mental illness and this festival will certainly make sure their work is heard.”
Festival director Carey Fitzgerald comments: “We are so pleased to partner with What’s Going On In Your Head? for the inaugural Shout London Festival. Between us we are opening up the conversation with the whole of London to normalise the subject of mental health.”
Project Management Head Danny Maher added: “For many years Ashford Place has been supporting people with mental health challenges. This festival will encourage a conversation with the wider public on how we need to portray mental health as a positive and enriching aspect of the lives of all of us.”
Further details of the full programme schedule will be announced in early October, along with news of the closing gala event.
