September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, a time to activate awareness of mental health challenges and wellness resources. Join us for a critical screening of 2021’s youth-produced film Behind My Happy Face. Teen depression is very common and yet it still carries a stigma. In this documentary, several youth share how environmental and systemic factors including school, immigration and the pandemic, contributed to their depression. EVC’s youth producers created this film to show us depression is not weakness, and that we need each other more than we think.

On September 29th, EVC’s Docs & Dialogue series presents an online screening of the 2021 youth-produced documentary Behind My Happy Face. This film explores teen depression, mental health treatments, and access to mental healthcare. September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. We use this month to focus on the mental health of young people and shift the public perception of facing mental health challenges as a weakness. The Center for Disease Control conducted a survey on the mental health of adolescents aged 12-17 years. The 2019 CDC report findings were:

15.1% had a major depressive episode.

36.7% had persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

18.8% seriously considered attempting suicide.

15.7% made a suicide plan.

8.9% attempted suicide.

If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support and resources contact:

Suicide Prevention Hotline (dial 988)

NAMI - National Alliance on Mental Illness

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After the film there will be a community dialogue with youth filmmakers and activists. Hosted by EVC alumni Cirilo Ordonez Zuri Salehe, with guests Youth Producer Ashley Woolcock, and her mother, Clinical Social Work Therapist, Stacey Wright-Woolcock who is featured in the documentary.The event will be recorded. The series is free and open to the public. Please consider donating to support young people changing the world one documentary at a time!

About EVC Presents: Docs & Dialogue:

EVC Presents: Docs & Dialogue is a bi-monthly youth-produced virtual documentary screening and dialogue series led by EVC’s young people whose lives and communities are impacted by systemic inequities. These individuals share their stories about the world as they see it - with all its problems and possibilities.

Join us for a youth-produced documentary screening and discussion led by young people impacted by systems of oppression in our society.

About Educational Video Center:

Founded in 1984, the Educational Video Center (EVC) is a youth media organization that teaches documentary filmmaking as a means to develop artistic, critical literacy, and career skills of underserved young people, while nurturing their idealism and commitment to social change. EVC’s vision is a just and equitable world created by young people and the power of their stories.