By Jeremy Cook
A 60-minute film premiering in October will explore how a group of Southern Downs women are taking a transformative approach to tackling the impact of mental illness in Warwick.
Produced by mental health experts at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), the documentary “Changing Our Ways” tells the stories of Warwick residents whose lives have been directly impacted by the towns high rates of Indigenous youth suicide and trauma.
It focuses particularly on the impacts of an arts-based mental health program called the Warwick Big Anxiety Festival which came to town in April 2022.
The festival was centred around a two-day workshop program and a mixed reality art exhibition at the Warwick Art Gallery which aimed to change the way people affected by mental illness think.
The purpose of the event was to address the town’s concerning rates of youth suicide, particularly among First Nations people, by looking at mental health intervention differently, resident and co-organiser of the program Cynthia Hoffman said.
“The suicide rate is alarming,” Ms Hoffman said.
“I believe there have been quite a few this year as well.
“Often at times, people don’t actually talk about suicide.”
Two weeks before the Big Anxiety Festival was due to start, a 16-year-old First Nations man took his own life after reportedly visiting Warwick Hospital to seek help for his mental health.
A meeting organised by the founder of UNSW’s Big Anxiety Research Centre Professor Jill Bennett was called for community members to talk openly about the mental health issue plaguing the town.
“We realised that this required a response,” Professor Bennett said.
“So we hosted a ‘long table’, which is an open community discussion, for the evening before Big Anxiety … and that built a lot of trust and allowed for a lot of issues and emotion and anger to be aired,” she said.
“Out of that … came a group within the community who were very keen to move forward and use some creative techniques to work with trauma, and intergenerational trauma, and to work collectively in the community to turn things around.”
A second long table discussion will be hosted on Friday October 20, two days before the film premieres, to again capture community perspectives.
Indigenous midwife and trauma worker Marianne Wobcke will then lead an immersive virtual reality workshop the following day, building on her work at the Big Anxiety Festival in 2022 where she led an immersive audio-visual “Road Trip” workshop.
Ms Wobcke’s workshops are designed to open up new ways of thinking for participants, according to Professor Bennett.
“Creative arts experiences are resources that people can make use of,” she said.
“We make tools that enable people to think about what’s happening internally.
“Immersive media can drop you into an experience that might take years to even begin to articulate and then you can share that experience and really start to examine it.”
Premiering on October 22 at Warwick Twin Cinema, “Changing Our Ways” will showcase open discussions of suicide and the impact of workshops like Ms Wobcke’s on Warwick residents.
Ms Hoffman reminded people struggling with their mental health to “reach out for help”.
“Definitely reach out … whether it’s to someone you know or whether it’s to a professional,” she said.
Tickets to the premiere cost $12 and can be purchased online.
