How A Movie Helped Me Find My Passion

I'd always loved movies, even when I was little, but it wasn't until eighth grade that I realized my passion for film. 

I'd been diagnosed with anxiety and depression at the end of my seventh-grade year. I was big into advocating for mental health and helping those who have mental illnesses. However, I didn't know how to support my belief. That is until I watched a strange Polish film called Suicide Room. 

I was really into indie and foreign films for a while, and that used to be all I watched. I looked for strange movies and shows that centered around mental illness because mainstream movies never do. I'm not sure how I found Suicide Room, but I'm very glad I did. 

Suicide Room is about a teenage boy, Dominik, who struggles with bullies at school and online. He meets a girl, Sylvia, online, and she introduces him to a virtual online world. The world she created is called the suicide room. She invites him to follow, and he proves himself worthy of joining the group. This suicide room, however, is highly detrimental to Dominik's mental health.

The online world isolates him from the real world and also his parents. Dominik quickly spirals down into an even worse state than he was before he met Sylvia. Sylvia convinces Dominik to lie to a psychiatrist to get medication. He does this and receives a bottle of pills. Sylvia then asks to meet him at a local club, but seeing as she has become a hermit who hasn't left her room in years, she, of course, does not show.

Dominik is in the club by himself when things get rough. Stressed and out of his mind, Dominik begins taking the pills. Pill after pill until he's taken them all. In the bathroom, Dominik begins freaking out, realizing what he'd done. He calls out for his mother, but no one thinks to help him. Sylvia then finds out from Dominik's mother that he had passed away. 

This film was not very good by any means, but it's still one of my favorite films of all time simply because it made me discern that I could write films of my own. After watching the movie, I thought about it, and for whatever reason, I thought to myself, "these people wrote this film about mental health; what's stopping me from doing the same?" So I started writing a script. It was the worst thing I've ever written, but you have to start somewhere. 

It's been five years since I first watched that movie, and my passion for screenwriting is stronger than ever. I've written several short films and a feature-length script, all having to do with mental health and/or disabilities.