The Lessons of the Night

"Beginnings are rare and fleeting. All we are left with in life is a long and unavoidable journey to the end. Describe the burdens you carry with you on this journey." I sent the above prompt to friends and colleagues and asked for any artistic response. I received numerous poems, songs, short stories, etc. I took all of the responses and stitched together the verses, stories, and emotions into a narrative following the protagonist through a day in his life. My goal was to give a snapshot of the mental health of those around me and remind everyone that they are not alone in their sadness.

Impressionistic glimpses of London life from early morning to rush hour.

It's been years since Stef last left her house. The loss of her brother combined with the quiet dread of the unknown conspiring to keep her inside. When her brother Liam's best friend, Evan, arrives to give Liam's journal to Stef, they begin a relationship. However, when Stef and Evan start to unpack their shared trauma, they question if their relationship can ever break free from its confines? Caught between Evan's images of a world outside that they could inhabit, and a story of lost love that Stef is translating from a previous generation, Stef must choose the kind of future she wants, and whether Evan will be a part of it.

A group of conflicted youths and adults struggling for personal connections are united by self-destruction, tragedy and redemption.

After a terrible air disaster, survivor Max Klein emerges a changed person. Unable to connect to his former life or to wife Laura, he feels godlike and invulnerable. When psychologist Bill Perlman is unable to help Max, he has Max meet another survivor, Carla Rodrigo, who is wracked with grief and guilt since her baby died in the crash which she and Max survived.

The finale of the depression and suicide awareness trilogy, Matt takes on his final battle against his mind after the years of trauma.

An unhinged office worker who planned to go on a shooting spree at his workplace struggles with his newfound status as a hero after he ends up stopping a shooting spree instead.

After the suicide of a teenage boy, his friends go through their own personal turmoil in isolation, on the Monday of his funeral.

Aging King George III of England is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger attempt to prevent the king's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales, from usurping the throne.

Ariel goes to therapy and talks to his psychologist. In the course of the session he talks about his mother and his ex-boyfriend, whom he last saw due to an argument in which Ariel didn't recognize him as his boyfriend in front of his mother.

Kenny and Andy are brothers. Kenny suffers from Alzheimer's and has been in Andy's care for the last couple of years. When Andy can no longer face the responsibility, a trip down memory lane seems to be the only answer to his problems.

Two couples have double-booked a weekend cottage - and when a therapist uses changework techniques to cure anxiety, the ex-military boyfriend is not best pleased.

Jazmín, a young woman living in Mexico City, is nonplussed when she receives a call informing her that her father Toussaint, an illegal Haitian immigrant, is ill. She hasn't seen him in years, and does not know why they are calling her. When she finally gets to the hospital and discovers that her father is suffering from vascular dementia, she finds herself faced with the task of caring for a man who is more a stranger than a father to her.

A hedonistic bachelor - he is his rich family's black sheep - falls for a suicidal mental patient.

Living in a village full of slopes can drive you mad. Those who have climbed them in the old-fashioned way are fully aware of that. What they don’t know is that their souls might have stuck around.

n the Jam Jar is an invitation to the intimacy of 81-year-old Joan’s final days, whose musings silently echo with Dan’s, her 50-year-old son. This fiction short-movie is a dive into death and grief, a tribute to maternal love comprised of nail clippings, aquarelle, strawberry jam and a ghost radar.

Pushed to the breaking point by Simon, her psychologically abusive boyfriend, Alice becomes an unwitting participant in an intervention staged by her two closest friends while on vacation. As she rediscovers the essence of herself and gains some much-needed perspective, she slowly starts to fray the cords of codependency that bind her. However, Simon's vengeance is as inevitable as it is shattering, and once unleashed, it tests her strength, her courage, and the bonds of deep-rooted friendships.

Pepa resolves to kill herself with a batch of sleeping-pill-laced gazpacho after her lover leaves her. Fortunately, she is interrupted by a deliciously chaotic series of events.

A former Australian soldier suffers from depression.

In a society where the government predicts the genetic intellectual capacity of every newborn child, a pregnant woman's fetus is rated a perfect, but unusual 10.