We have something to SAY.

Toronto, ON: November 9 and 10, SAY Campaign Founders Lina Dhingra and Geeta Raj speak at Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAM-H) film festival entitled “Rendezvous with Madness.” An intriguing name, indeed! The film festival, through its wide range of films on addiction, various forms of mental wellness issues, and role of family/friends, brought viewers and panel members face-to-face with images, sounds, realities of what many experience on a daily basis.

 
I personally watched and heard everyone around me gasp, cry, empathize as they witnessed children trying to help their mother in L.A. who had hoarding disorder. The daughter, Cynthia Lester, found the energy to catch all the events of the intervention over the course of a year on tape - so audience members were watching the real thing. There you were, right there, up close. The daughter’s struggle of caring for her mother, in an impossible situation, was so close to home that I found myself shaking when speaking on the panel following the film.

Lina spoke beautifully the next day, after a screening of Devrai, a film about a South Indian man in South India who had lifelong psizophrenia. (In a lovely disclosure of information, we found out the film was financed by the Canadian International Development Agency, the Canadian counterpart of the U.S. Agency for International Development. So glad to see international development agencies broadening their mandate to include film and media as a tool of development!)

Lina, after giving interviews for South Asian media on OMNI and other channels, spoke honestly and with cadence on the role of caregivers to mental illness patients and about the issue in South Asian communities alone. Her experiences have not just highlighted but platformed the gaps and carelessness in the social systems which are meant to help. But, they rather exaggerate and worsen. Lina speaks from a place of experience, from a place of depth, from a place of deep insight. She’s SAYing it, let’s listen.

Here’s to hoping our participation was as healing to members of the audience, film-makers, friends and organizers of the festival as it was to Lina and myself. Thanks to Workman Arts Theater and CAM-H!