Why is mental health in the documentary community an issue?

Ask any documentary filmmaker how they are doing, and they will tell you of their stresses. The highly competitive, under-resourced nature of the business, coupled with the challenges of telling stories that are often deeply personal and traumatic, multiplied by the number of years it takes to move a documentary from idea to screen, make for fertile ground for mental health challenges. Anecdotally, we all know this is true. But for too long we have brushed this aside as problems related to “an artist’s life”. Over the past years, increasing competition in the marketplace compounded by multiple pandemics have cranked up the pressures on filmmakers. We are facing a community that often suffers at the edge of silent crisis. Addressing these issues is long overdue.