May is Mental Health Awareness Month and we welcomed the reminder to prioritize mental wellness as we continue to social distance and live our lives mostly secluded. Here are 5 of our top tips for keeping our minds healthy:
Get Outside: Find a way to make it happen, whether it’s lunch outside, going for a walk, midday exercise, or a coffee break.
Utilize Tools: We just added the Shine App to our internal wellness offerings and we love it because it serves as a daily support system offering self-care strategies, meditations, stories, and calming sounds to help you shift your mindset or mood. They believe that “fighting for the mental health of marginalized groups helps fight for their lives and rights—and it’s one of the most important ways to improve the global landscape of mental health.”
Artistic Expression: It might sound fancy, but it doesn’t have to be. Even just spending the time to throw some watercolors on a page can help ground us and clear our minds when we’re feeling overwhelmed.
Therapy: Whether you like to receive support once a month, once a week, or a daily check-in – everyone deserves to have access to the help that they need and the use of therapy should be totally destigmatized. We love supporting the Loveland Foundation because of its mission to “bring opportunity and healing to communities of color, and especially to Black women and girls.”
If you haven’t already heard the big news, we brought on Brian Walker as Picture Motion’s new CEO! We’re so excited to have Brian leading our team. Although we will miss our fabulous leaders Christie & Wendy – they will remain on our Board of Directors. Be sure to read our announcement to learn more about the amazing Brian and his passion for and experience in impact work.
Best, Team PicMo
Destigmatizing & Demystifying Mental Health Conditions Through Mysteries of Mental Illness
This month, we have also been working with GBH and PBS to engage audiences around Mysteries of Mental Illness, an upcoming four-hour broadcast series about mental illness in science and society. We are working with grassroots mental health organizations across the country to host sneak-peek screenings in advance of the June 2021 broadcast. We are also organizing two national panels featuring mental health experts and advocates, one of which will explore the topics covered in Decolonizing Mental Health, a WORLD Channel digital series being released in conjunction with the broadcast series that will explore how BIPOC communities are impacted by mental health issues, and the racism underscoring the mental healthcare industry.
The Way Home Sheds Light On Homelessness
Season two of The Way Home, a short-form documentary series that focuses on the homelessness epidemic in California, will begin its exclusive marquee event and grassroots screening tour in June. Picture Motion will be supporting this launch by bringing together communities and organizations across the education, health, and policy sector to raise awareness of this crisis and provide education tool kits and take action opportunities for audiences. The series is produced by KTF Films and Bread and Butter Films, and the impact campaign is supported by Kaiser Permanente.
PicMo Team Member Snapshot
Meet Rebecca Strawn! Rebecca is our Impact Strategy and Partnerships Manager based in NY who works on developing impact strategies and partnerships that amplify and empower films as they reach communities and audiences across the country.
What is she working on right now: Fostering partnerships for American Veteran and The Way Home as well as curating impactful + educational content for educators and students nationwide with Disney.
What she is watching: Currently guiltily enjoying CRUEL SUMMER – recently, TIME from Garrett Bradley on Amazon Prime.
A fun fact about Rebecca: She is an avid composter. 🐛
An action she wants you to take: Take 5 minutes to prep for the midterms and check your voter registration status here.
- Participate in Color of Change’s Week of Action commemorating the racial justice uprisings one year ago following the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. Every day this week has had a different focus with actions to take and community events to participate in.
- Attend the last screenings of Kinema’s AAPI Storytellers Film Festival! Tonight at 8 pm EST is a screening and discussion of Who Killed Vincent Chin? And on Monday at 8 pm EST is a screening of Waikiki.
- It’s not too late to apply to Reese Witherspoon’s LitUp Fellowship for Underrepresented Women Writers. Applications are only open for a few more days!
- Host a sneak peek screening of Mysteries of Mental Illness before it premieres on June 22.
- 14 virtual sneak peek screenings organized for the upcoming PBS documentary series Mysteries of Mental Illness
- 700 students watched Covid Diaries NYC through our Student Screening Week in May.
- 3 virtual impact event screenings of IMDbTV’s docuseries Moment of Truth throughout April and May. Each focused on impacting narrative change by deconstructing commonly held misconceptions around the function of this country’s legal system. Watch the panel that followed our premiere screening here.
