
Voices With Impact 2024
Serious Mental Illness and Cliques & Echo Chambers
Every year, we award funding to ten teams to produce short films on timely mental health themes. We’re honored to announce this year’s recipients:
All Meat Diet
Hae Ji Cho
Hae Ji Cho is a Korean Brazilian American creative currently based in Los Angeles, CA. As a writer-director, she tells stories that shine light on the beauty and grief within the endless contradictions and peculiarities found in the human experience.
ALL MEAT DIET follows the journey of a young man who turns to a collective of zealous fitness enthusiasts in pursuit of his "best self." As the protagonist entrenches himself in a community that mirrors his ambitions, he also finds the shame he harbors reflected back at him through the voices of several of his most fervent peers.
All Meat Diet
Kevin Alcántar
Kevin Alcántar (he/they) is a Mexican-American multi-disciplinary artist. By exploring the rich inner lives of everyday people, his work aims to highlight how grand stories can be found in the unlikeliest of places.
ALL MEAT DIET follows the journey of a young man who turns to a collective of zealous fitness enthusiasts in pursuit of his "best self." As the protagonist entrenches himself in a community that mirrors his ambitions, he also finds the shame he harbors reflected back at him through the voices of several of his most fervent peers.
Plant People
Jason Eksuzian
Jason Eksuzian is an award-winning writer/director whose work has been seen at Austin Film Festival, SXSW, Tribeca Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Series Fest, LA Comedy Festival and on networks such as CBS, Bravo, MTV and Discovery+.
Plant People is a quirky drama that explores the connection between loneliness and mental health.
Plant People
Kincaid Walker
A Northwestern graduate, Kincaid Walker is a writer-producer and actor whose extensive credits include ABC, NBC, CBS, CW and Disney, feature films, and dozens of national commercials. She created the award-winning digital series, Hug it Out.
Plant People is a quirky drama that explores the connection between loneliness and mental health.
Crane
Aiden Keltner
Aiden Keltner's focus as a filmmaker is on telling underrepresented stories from the mental health community. Aiden has been inspired by his own lived experience with close family members diagnosed with serious mental illnesses.
Crane tells the story of a relationship between a father with Serious Mental Illness and his daughter, told through the eyes of the child. The film explores the alienation and loneliness that can come from living with a parent with an SMI, and how a simple act of love can shift the child's perspective.
Crane
Aakash Raj
Aakash Raj is a Los Angeles based cinematographer with over twelve years of experience. Aakash's films have garnered international recognition, with premieres and showcases at renowned festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, TIFF, Raindance, and more.
Crane tells the story of a relationship between a father with Serious Mental Illness and his daughter, told through the eyes of the child. The film explores the alienation and loneliness that can come from living with a parent with an SMI, and how a simple act of love can shift the child's perspective.
3200 Degrees Fahrenheit
Gavin Seal
Gavin Seal is a filmmaker on a mission to dissolve otherness using the universal language of cinema. His work includes Followers (Fantasia, Reelworld) and Case Claus'd (Montreal International Black Film Festival, CBC Short Film Face Off).
After learning his mentally ill brother signed a do-not-resuscitate order, Nabil Khan is forced to decide whether or not to save his life against his will.
Meditations Between Us
Ashleigh Vaillancourt
Ashleigh Vaillancourt is an award-winning filmmaker and multimedia artist based in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is known for her work exploring themes of personal resilience, and has shown her pieces in festivals and galleries around the globe.
“Meditations Between Us” is a short experimental animation depicting two lovers as they grapple with the challenges posed by schizophrenia. One, ensnared by delusions, leaves the other behind.
Screenless
Brandon Hicks
Brandon Hicks is a writer and cartoonist based in New Brunswick, Canada. He is the author/illustrator of several books and frequent contributor to a number of publications. His award-winning short films have played in international festivals.
Screenless is a short animated film about how social media and the online sphere impact a person. We follow a woman through a normal day, but all of the interactions that typically happen in the online space are taking place in the physical world.
Bonfire
David McShane
David is an animation director based in London. His award-winning shorts have played internationally, premiering at Cannes (Solar Plexus) and the BFI London Film Festival (Come). He also works as a stop-motion animator.
Bonfire is an animation exploring the echo chambers of teenagers on a Bonfire night. Bonfire examines how this internet-facilitated world (often hyper-sexualised) leads to mental health issues like depersonalisation and depression.
The Four Noble Truths
Asha Alaji-Sharif
Asha Alaji-Sharif is a visual artist from Atlanta, who enjoys storytelling through every medium. Although she’s always loved filmmaking, her first feature, released in 2019, sparked her passion of sharing other’s stories through documentaries.
The Four Noble Truths is a short documentary detailing how Schizophrenia and other mental illness have impacted Maeta’s life and how he has learned to cope with it.
Clubbing
Eric Forbes
Eric (he/him) is a director and cinematographer from Fort Collins, Colorado, who is passionate about films focused on mental health. He has directed/co-created multiple films on topics including ADHD, family system structures, and climate anxiety.
Facing social isolation and anxiety, a college freshman who has never left his rural town attends a club fair, where he is bombarded with comedic yet overwhelming monologues by each club leader on what it takes to join their clique.

Clubbing
Zach Myers
Zach is a writer and director who has worked independently in film and media for over six years. He specializes in comedy writing, and has directed several comedies that explore the absurd, anxious, and endearing qualities of day-to-day social interactions.
Facing social isolation and anxiety, a college freshman who has never left his rural town attends a club fair, where he is bombarded with comedic yet overwhelming monologues by each club leader on what it takes to join their clique.
Fat Hen
Leanne Dimant
Leanne is a director based in the UK. She’s created content for the Red Cross and the V&A Museum. She’s currently making the documentary ‘Something Glamorous, Something Awkward’, about an artist in hospital making spaceships to cross social borders.
Fat Hen follows Sue, an artist who began working visually during time spent in hospitals. Her artworks or ’excretions of the head’, are one way to recalibrate all she’s survived. An unexpected friendship with horticulturist Sergio unearths a newfound love of plants.
Fat Hen
Sue Morgan
Sue completed a doctorate in philosophy and worked as a corporate lawyer before her schizo-affective disorder forced early retirement. In hospitals she began working visually, later achieving a first class degree in drawing and exhibiting work nationally and internationally.
Fat Hen follows Sue, an artist who began working visually during time spent in hospitals. Her artworks or ’excretions of the head’, are one way to recalibrate all she’s survived. An unexpected friendship with horticulturist Sergio unearths a newfound love of plants.