Canadian filmmaker puts mental health in focus on screen and on set

Filmmaker Rebeccah Love’s first feature film puts a focus on mental health – in front of and behind the camera.

Rebeccah Love’s debut feature film “Fortescue” delves deep into mental health, both on and off camera.

“It’s really inspired by many of the friendships I’ve had throughout my life, but it’s also touching on questions of misogyny and mental health, specifically psychosis,” said Love.

“It’s sort of a fun summer cottage story, but dealing with some sort of heavier issues that I think a lot of young people struggle with.”

Love knows the struggle well. She has been diagnosed with bipolar disease and lives with a chronic arthritic condition – which is why she wanted to ensure everyone taking part in her film felt comfortable and valued.

Focusing on shorter days, healthy eating habits and plenty of rest, Love made sure mental health was a top priority.

“We had an intimacy coordinator who worked with us in rehearsals and we also had a conflict resolution manager. We did some work with a psychotherapist to just create a lot of conversations about emotional safety going into the shoot,” she explained.

For Love’s cast and crew, filming at a cottage for a month was the perfect setting.

“It was pretty much like summer camp for adults. We got to go to the most beautiful lake, which is the title of the film for the scale and the entire cast and crew were living and working together for about a month. But we actually only had, I believe, 19 shoot days, which is kind of unheard of,” said Chelsea Preston, the actor who plays Gabby in the film.

“We had a lot of downtime, which was so incredible. It was for Rebeccah to make sure that she was getting enough rest, but also for the entire crew. So, we only had eight-hour days.”

The eight-hour days were welcomed by cast and crew, especially given the emotional strain an actor can experience when playing a character.

“Our bodies don’t actually register that the work that we’re doing as actors is not real. So, the body is kind of recognizing this, this trauma that we are acting out as real trauma,” Preston said.

“It’s really important for actors and crew members as well that are like witnessing these intense scenes over and over again, to actually process that physical and emotional trauma on set so that they’re not taking it home with them.”

Preston says this kind of working environment sets the stage for conversations around mental health and healing in the industry.

“It was definitely an amazing opportunity to kind of work on my practice and to put those tools into play. And to do that moving forward, especially for heavier, pieces that are about mental health or have abuse in them,” said Preston.

Preston said the experience on set was amazing and the techniques they developed will be something they implement going forward.

“We all kind of left being slightly better people, hopefully, and learning a lot about each other,” said Preston.

As for the message in the film itself, Preston had one message for viewers.

“Friendships are also family.”

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