Shining a light on the teenage experience, the Open Mind Film Festival goes straight to the source.

Taking place Sunday, the 5th annual Open Mind Film Festival will spotlight 13 films selected from over 300 submissions and award the top three films, with the first-place prize being $1,500, said the festival’s founder and co-chair, Mia Silverman. The free-entry event is held by The Friends of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour, an organization dedicated to providing education on mental health and raising funds for UCLA’s Semel Institute, said Silverman, who is a board member. As a festival for teenagers, Open Mind is part of the organization’s mission to encourage mental health conversations among young people, Silverman said, especially during the current youth mental health crisis.

“I felt that had to be a conversation that we started at an earlier age,” she said. “If we can influence younger people that it’s good to ask for help, that would be a way to help reduce the stigma. We were looking for a way to give teens an opportunity to tell their story, we wanted to engage them in the conversation.”

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Following no specific prompt, films submitted for the festival only had to be under five minutes and related to youth mental health, Silverman said. Tomas Officer, one of this year’s finalists, created “Feeling Good,” a film following a teenager named Maile and her struggles with substance abuse. He said the open-ended nature of the festival was key for the creative aspects found in the films, as much of the films’ originality couldn’t have been created without this element. As a witness to youth mental health illness, specifically substance abuse, Officer said he is deeply passionate about the topic and starting conversations about addiction and its risks. Finding the festival much more welcoming and inclusive than he expected, he said this event felt like an opportunity to shed light on a conversation he believes needs to happen.

As to why film can be so effective when raising awareness, actress and judge panel member Sarah Gilman said film often influences personal perspectives. She said she noticed many of the expectations people have about their adult lives – such as career, relationship or lifestyle goals – come from the movies and shows they grew up watching. Seeing specific themes repeated in this media format, Gilman added, subconsciously makes people chase these things. This is why talking about mental health is important – it normalizes the topic, breaking apart the isolating weight that comes with these illnesses, she said.

“Nowadays, you see a little bit more hesitancy from a lot of big companies to touch these really difficult topics, suicide being one of them,” she said. “There’s a lot of incorrectly placed fear that bringing it up will plant the idea in teens’ minds, when it has been shown that is not true. In fact, bringing it up gives a space for that pressure to kind of flow out, and you can actually have a conversation about the thing.”

Also addressing mental health representation in film, Officer said it is imperative to have young voices speak for and to other young people. He said no other group could have the same level of understanding of teen mental health as those who are actively experiencing similar pressures and expectations. He added that when older generations try to address this topic, there are usually assumptions about teenagers’ emotions that does not exist when younger people lead the conversation. Recognizing this element, Silverman attributed the reasoning for making a festival exclusively for teenagers to the need to understand their minds in a time when youth mental health illnesses are rapidly increasing.

Additionally, Gilman said high school is an essential time to learn about ways to express and regulate emotions. With a background in mental health advocacy, the actress said she has encountered studies showing that, during this stage in life, the brain begins developing elements related to social connection. This makes teens hyper-aware of outside perceptions of themselves, often leading to many of the struggles teenagers face. She added that these struggles, although developed over the span of approximately four years, tend to carry over throughout people’s entire lives. Because of this, she said she finds Open Mind to be an opportunity to ensure that what teenagers are learning at this stage of their lives can positively contribute to their futures.

“In the absence of learning tools to express emotions and manage those emotions and identify them, like through art, you can find other more destructive coping mechanisms,” Gilman said.

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Nevertheless, Officer said whether attendees are high school students or not, the Open Mind Film Festival is a space where people can make sense of their emotions and feel seen while also appreciating the effort put into creating the showcased films. He hopes other teens feel inclined to participate in the event, helping develop the festival’s goal.

“I would encourage other people to apply to the festival to give you a voice,” Officer said. “Not only to give yourself a voice so that you can share your experiences, but also I think this (festival) really helps people and changes people’s lives.”