Emily is a first-generation Latina teen struggling to approach her family members about her mental health. She’s overwhelmed by the responsibilities that come with two younger siblings, college applications, and the continuous straddling of her two distinct worlds as a bicultural person.
She wants to bring this up to her parents, but she’s not naive to the stigma. Things like therapy have never been a part of the conversation—and that’s on purpose. They don’t want to hear it.
So, what should she do?
GSS Assistant Professor Jenn Lilly, Ph.D., found that this is a common experience among Latina adolescents. And it’s now the plot of a short film she co-wrote with Latina youth. The film, titled Nuestro Apoyo, which means “our support,” aims to spark critical conversations about mental health in Latinx families.
“The film is meant to inspire open dialogue around early recognition and treatment of girls’ mental health problems,” she said.
A Creative Take on Research Products
Lilly’s article, “‘I Learned to Bottle Up My Feelings From a Young Age’: A Narrative Analysis of Latina Young People’s Family Mental Health Socialization,” demonstrated how difficult it can be for Latina young people to talk about mental health within their families. Lilly’s qualitative study findings suggest a need for culturally sensitive, family-centered interventions that promote open communication about mental health. However, Lilly recognizes that academic articles, while important, may not reach the people who would most benefit from them.
So, she produced a film—inspired by and written with her research participants.
Photo courtesy: The Studio at Reel Works
To create Nuestro Apoyo, Lilly brought together five young Latina women from her previous research projects, all of whom are either current students or alumni of Fordham University with interdisciplinary interests—from social services to digital media to business administration. They collaborated with Lilly on the storyline, character development, and dialogue, resulting in a completed film script.
“[The film is] really inspired by their stories. During my qualitative research, I listened to them talk about what it was like when they did have mental health struggles growing up, and what communication in their families around that looked like,” Lilly said. “Many of them wanted mental health support, but didn’t feel able to seek that out until they were in college, and could do so confidentially on their own without their parents’ knowledge.”
This wasn’t Lilly’s first time collaborating with research participants to co-produce creative digital media products. All five members of the Nuestro Apoyo writing team previously collaborated on a series of two digital magazines titled Bloom. One issue focused on mental health and the other on sexuality, gender, and relationships. The collaboration was an effort to share their research findings with other Latina teens in a more accessible format.
Lilly and her team soon found that producing a film, however, required additional expertise. They started to search for partners.
A Partner with Purpose
Lilly’s team connected with Brooklyn-based The Studio at ReelWorks—an Emmy-winning production company that hires talented emerging filmmakers to collaborate with industry professionals to create content for clients—to bring Nuestro Apoyo to life. Lilly said the organization’s mission hit home.
Photo courtesy: The Studio at Reel Works
“They’re a really unique organization that trains young people to work in media industries. And that’s really how I became passionate about media,” she said. “I was involved in a program in high school that taught me to make films. It was really inspirational for me, and was a means of self-expression that I didn’t have before. So, I’ve always believed in those kinds of programs.”
The collaboration began during pre-production, Lilly said. ReelWorks offered helpful notes during the script-writing process and provided professional insight into developing the look and tone of the film.
During the writing process, Lilly and the writing team prioritized ensuring an accurate representation of Latinx family dynamics and avoiding perpetuating harmful stereotypes. This would allow the writing team to represent themselves and their family experiences in ways that were more authentic and nuanced. To capture these nuances on film, they felt strongly that the story needed a Latina director.
Photo courtesy: Jenn Lilly
ReelWorks said it had the perfect person for the project. So, it sent some of Maya Velazquez’s previous work for review and set up a meeting. Lilly said the chemistry was instant, and Velazquez had the skill and the vision to make the film a success. Plus, Velazquez had a unique advantage: her mom is a therapist.
“She had this more extensive knowledge of mental health and help-seeking than your average person, because she had grown up very exposed to that world,” Lilly said. “So it seemed like the perfect union of folks to make this thing happen.”
With Velazquez on board, the ReelWorks team got to work on producing the film using a crew of its own graduates and a talented cast of actors, whom Lilly helped choose. A GSS Master of Social Work (MSW) graduate, D’Andrah Almanzar, GSS ‘24, plays the role of the therapist. Prior to graduating from GSS, D’Andrah worked with Lilly as her research assistant, providing essential support to earlier phases of the research.
“It was special to include a cast member with intimate knowledge of the research and the whole conceptualization of the project,” Lilly said.
Shooting lasted three days over the summer and is now in post-production, scheduled to be completed this month. This aligns with the start of Latine Heritage Month, which begins on September 15.
An Intervention Tool
Lilly said the project’s next phase includes using Nuestro Apoyo as the focal point of a broader behavioral change program. The goal of the program is to decrease the stigma surrounding mental health and related help-seeking that often prevents families from discussing mental health concerns or seeking help when needed.
Photo courtesy: Jenn Lilly
“There’s a lot of research out there showing that visual media—narrative media in particular—does have a greater impact on changing attitudes and behaviors, which are really key in this mental health space,” she said. “We want to break down some of that stigma, and we want to help people feel confident in seeking the help that they need.”
A film’s superpower is transporting the audience, Lilly said. If audience members connect with the characters and feel invested in the world of the story, they’re more likely to be persuaded by the film’s message. A relatable, authentic story, like the one told in Nuestro Apoyo, is key to getting a message through.
“We really want to create a film that [the audience is]going to strongly identify with to help them start critically reflecting on what mental health communication looks like in their families, what mistakes they might have made in the past that they could learn from, and how to do things differently in the future,” she said.
Ultimately, there is one reason Lilly transformed her research article into a film: emotion breeds action.
“We want people to be moved,” she said. “I think that’s something film does better than an academic article.”
