Three young Brisbane film makers have pulled together a star-studded cast to show depression and anxiety sufferers they are not alone.
The self-funded short documentary, A Better Place, shares four people's stories about beating the black dog, including 2012 Big Brother winner Ben Norris and film maker Andrew Cripp, who has suffered depression and anxiety since childhood.
In January, Andrew approached two friends, who are film students with QUT's Creative Industries Faculty, to help heal him by healing others.
"For a long time I carried around an overwhelming feeling of nothingness and I'm still suffering depression and anxiety to this day," Andrew said.
"I can have really good weeks and really bad weeks but what gets me through it is this project.
"I've found if you have depression or anxiety and you have strategies to deal with it, you might as well go public with it because someone else out there is feeling even worse than you."
Andrew, Nicholas Laube and Nick Harris used their Facebook contacts to seek out people willing to record messages of support for sufferers.
A raft of high-profile Australians answered the call including: rugby league immortal Wally Lewis; Broncos co-captain Corey Parker; Home and Away's Ada Nicodemou; Brisbane media personalities Spencer Howson, Andrew Lofthouse, Garry Youngberry and B105's Labby, Stav and Abby; and Violent Soho and Chase Atlantic band members.
"We were very grateful for their time," Nick said.
"Depression is the world's leading cause of disability but, apart from the odd video on YouTube and some fantastic Beyond Blue resources, there's not much being done to tackle it in the film realm.
"If one person is helped by this project, we've done what we set out to do with the film."
The film makers were surprised by the passionate responses they received, even from celebrities who could not spare time to film messages.
"Rather than film a support message, Ben Norris was immediately keen to share his whole story about recovering from depression after his father suicided in 2006," Nicolas said.
"In fact, all four of the people who told their stories were really willing to give us their all, which was amazing considering the confronting nature of their circumstances."
Releasing the documentary freely on YouTube was a deliberate strategy for the film makers.
With young people increasingly using the social media platform as a search engine, the trio hope to reach as many people as possible, particularly those who are in crisis and combing the internet for help.
Visit the Nicolas Laube Short Films YouTube channel to see A Better Place, or search the title name and #YouAreNotAlone.
Media contact:
•Kate Haggman, QUT Media, 07 3138 0358, kate.haggman@qut.edu.au.
•After hours, QUT Media, 0407 585 901.
