Mandown is a short film written by and starring Irish actor Alan Bradley and Francis Quigley.
The film is backed by Headstrong and focuses on the role young men can play in helping their pals through mental health difficulties, with statistics showing that suicide is the leading cause of death for young male adults between the ages of 20 and 34.
Bradley and Quigley have made the film available for free ahead of World Mental Health Day on 10 October and are hopeful that as many people as possible get to see the video.
We spoke to Alan about putting the video together, as well as the response to it.
“Myself and Francis discussed lots of ideas and looked at issues that we faced in our lives today as young men,” he told JOE.
“Depression was a topic that we both felt was a growing problem among our peers and we decided it was important that we tackle it – the news at the time was full of stories of suicide in young men such as ‘Lil Chris’ and others closer to home.
“We recognised the issue in our personal lives of men maybe being unsure about how to engage with and approach a friend who is perhaps suffering with a mental health problem, we wanted to address this and think of ways that might be realistic for guys to start to talk about this subject more and look out for each other.
“We used both our own personal experiences and research in the area to help us to write the piece.”
Response to it has been “overwhelmingly positive,” according to the actor.
“We have had people opening up to us about their own experiences with depression, or their brother, father, son, friend after watching the film.
“We have found it provides a platform for opening up a conversation about young men’s mental health and allows people to share their own stories as well as showing some of the symptoms of depression and a practical way you could approach the subject with your friend.”
Tony Bates, CEO and founder of youth mental health charity Headstrong, said: “It’s always encouraging when we have young professionals coming to us with ideas like Mandown, and it shows that youth awareness of mental health issues is growing, but there’s still work to be done.
“Projects like this are helping to close the gap between physical and mental health understanding and we’re really pleased we could help support this important film.”
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