This month, Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema is partnering with Bell Let’s Talk and Workman Arts for a special (FREE) Mental Health Film Series, which aims to heighten awareness and generate discussion about mental illness and how it’s treated in our society. The Mental Health Film Series will feature three documentaries, each exploring a topic concerning mental health and the stigma that surrounds mental illness. 

The series begins Wednesday, January 17 with The S Word and will conclude on January 31, Bell Let’s Talk Day, with Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports, and Me. Here’s a little info on the films:

THE S WORD
Wednesday, January 17 – 6:30 PM
D: Lisa Klein | 93 min | 2017 | USA 
Suicide touches many of our lives and yet our society has so much trouble understanding it, or even just talking about it. The S Word seeks to move the conversation forward by engaging with those coping with loss and grappling head on with suicide in all its complexity. Directed by Lisa Klein, who lost both her brother and father to suicide, and driven by survivor Dese’Rae Stage’s mission to create a movement of greater understanding, The S Word is a deeply compassionate and courageous work of documentary filmmaking.

MANIC 
Wednesday, January 24 – 6:30 PM 
D: Kalina Bertin | 84 min | 2017 | USA Canada
Filmmaker Kalina Bertin bravely turns the camera on her own household to find answers for her siblings Felicia and François Sean’s mental health issues. Their father George was a prophet, scam artist, cult leader and father of fifteen children from different parts of the world. Is this mysterious man’s strange legacy connected to Felicia’s struggle with bipolar disorder? An assembly of home movies, interviews and observations, the Hot Docs 2017 Festival favourite Manic is an urgent and compelling plunge into a family’s troubling personal history and the intangible ties that bind us. 

DARKNESS AND HOPE: DEPRESSION, SPORTS, AND ME 
Wednesday, January 31 – 6:30 PM 
D: Hubert Davis | 44 min | 2012 | Canada
Celebrated athletes, including Olympian Clara Hughes, Stanley Cup champion Stéphane Richer and World Series winner Darryl Strawberry, open up to Michael Landsberg, host of TSN 1050’s LANDSBERG IN THE MORNING, about their personal battles with depression. While facing his own mental health challenges, Landsberg brings insight and intelligence to an issue that often lives in the shadows of the professional sports world, shining a light on the stories of perseverance, vulnerability and humanity of our athletic heroes.

Each screening will be followed by a discussion moderated by Geoff Pevere, Program Director of Workman Arts’ Rendezvous With Madness, with filmmakers, subjects and experts.

Free tickets (a maximum of two per person, per screening) can be obtained at the Hot Docs Box Office (506 Bloor St. W.) or online at www.hotdocscinema.ca.