Singapore youth drive Mental Health Film Festival
The TL;DR: Many young people are involved in the Mental Health Film Festival Singapore, which is in its fifth edition in 2024. Some of them are participating as film-makers and others as interns helping to run the event on the ground.
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MHFFS chairman Jade Kua (back row, second from left, with past and present team members) says “the interns are the backbone of our operations”.
PHOTO: DILLON LOH
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SINGAPORE – Hana Vincent submitted a short film about her struggles during the pandemic to the 2023 edition of the Mental Health Film Festival Singapore (MHFFS).
The experience was so positive and therapeutic for her that she is back in 2024 for the fifth edition of the festival – but as an organiser rather than as a participant.
“I really enjoyed my experience last year, and I’m interested in the (film) industry so I wanted to come back,” she said.
The 16-year-old international school student is just one of the many young people involved in this year’s MHFFS, which will be held from Nov 7 to Nov 10 at Golden Village Suntec City.
Revolving around the theme Building Bridges To Mental Well-being, the festival will showcase six feature films as well as a short film competition.
Launched in 2018, MHFFS is organised by a small team – comprising three board members and three full-time staff members – along with three interns, mostly from polytechnics, who assist with marketing, outreach and planning programmes for the festival, and around 50 youth volunteers who help out with photo-taking, fund-raising efforts and other tasks.
Dr Jade Kua, 45, chairman of MHFFS, said: “I would go as far as to say that the interns are the backbone of our operations, as the managers guide them, while the board provides strategic direction and overall support.”
Student Hana Vincent (right) giving a speech at the 2023 edition of MHFFS. She had submitted a short film then, and is back for the 2024 edition as an organiser.
PHOTO: MHFFS
Ms Jean Ng, 22, is another intern who has been involved in the 2024 edition.
As she was in the programming team, she helped to select the films for the festival, liaise with directors and distributors, as well as create the theme for the festival.
Ms Ng served as an intern at the festival in September 2023 while she was a student in Singapore Polytechnic studying Applied Drama and Psychology, but extended her six-month internship to August.
“(Last year) I felt like I got to see the end of the festival, so it was a lot of tying up loose ends. I wanted to experience what the start was like,” she said.
Ms Ng believes that the work she did at MHFFS is meaningful.
“(Film) is a good catalyst for talking about mental health. It normalises conversations (about the issue), and allows people to be entertained and represented at the same time,” she said.
She has also learnt about how to deal with her own mental health challenges from her experience at MHFFS.
Ms Jean Ng (second from right), then a student at Singapore Polytechnic, was involved in the 2023 edition of MHFFS. She said the work was meaningful.
PHOTO: MHFFS
“During my O-level year, I didn’t do well academically and I put a lot of pressure on myself. My friends did better than I did in certain subjects so I compared myself to them,” she said.
“My time at MHFFS taught me that there’s really no point in comparing with other people and looking down on myself, (as) it’ll make me feel and do worse.”
Dr Kua, who specialises in emergency medicine, said: “At the heart of the festival is our belief in the power of stories and film to connect us, spark empathy, and challenge the way we think about mental health.”
Hana said making her short film for the festival in 2023 allowed her to reflect on how far she had come as a person since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Glimpse, a 7½-minute work that made it to the top 10 in the youth category of the short film competition, was based on her own experiences during the pandemic. It depicts a young girl struggling to deal with her monotonous daily life.
“During lockdown, I found my days getting quite repetitive to the point where that period of time felt rather aimless. It really disrupted my sense of self-confidence. I felt like I was drowning (in my emotions),” Hana said.
“Making the film really allowed me to reflect on how far I’ve come (since that period in my life).”
At the festival, the screening of each featured film will be accompanied by panel conversations conducted by mental health professionals and those who have faced mental health challenges.
Other than the six featured films from countries including Singapore, Japan, Denmark, and Finland, the top 22 entries from the open and youth categories of the short film competition will also be screened.
Tickets for the festival screenings are available at
