Tag Archives: health

Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 (2016)

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January 23

I found another Academy Award winning film to watch today for the Genre-ary. This won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short in 2018. The title had caught my attention at first as did some of the artwork that went with the promotion for Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405.

The short told the story of Mindy Alper, a 56-year old artist, who had spent years suffering from a variety of mental illnesses including acute anxiety, mental disorder and depression. She had been committed to mental institutions, spending around 10 years institutionalized. During that time, Mindy would receive electro shock therapy in an attempt to get past the mental states she was in.

She spent much of the time unable to speak and scared about everything in life. Much of the struggles could be traced back to a combative relationship with her father. The film does not come out and say it, but there are some implications about the relationship that might be the reason for many of the problems.

The doc short showed the progress Mindy had made and how her struggles with mental illness was something she would have to overcome on a daily basis. It showed how she used her art to really get some of the emotions out, giving them a place to go.

Some of the papier mache statues she had made, in particular one of her favorite psychiatrist, were absolutely stunning. I could not take my eyes off of these pieces of art. Her drawings were used to illustrate much of the doc as well. This art truly told a powerful story.

Mindy was a complete inspiration and, despite her life’s downfalls, she has found something that has allowed her to express her feelings.

I can see the reason why this was an Oscar winner.

65 Roses (2019)

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January 17

With time tight on a Friday, I found another documentary short film to watch this morning. This one I found on a website called Shortverse and it was from 2019. The title of the film was 65 Roses.

65 Roses is a symbol adopted by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation for their organization. It is based on a story of a kid who could not pronounce the name of his disease and would call it 65 Roses.

This doc featured a 14-year old girl named Yllka Leti, who lived in Prishtina, Kosovo and she had cystic fibrosis. The doc looked at the things she had to do to manage her illness and her positive attitude overall about everything. She was very uch like a 14-year old girl who had to learn about and deal with this insidious illness.

The film spoke about how she would paint and sell her paintings to help fund the medicine that she needed to take. I wish there was more about this aspect of Yllka’s life in the doc. I would have liked to have seen more of the creative flow that the young girl had because selling paintings is not an easy thing to do and if she was able to do it to a significance of helping the costs of her medicine, that is an inspirational story. All of this is here, it just was not the main focus of the doc.

I have not had much experience with the illness of cystic fibrosis. The only exposure I had to it was the character of Emma on Bates Motel, who did have cystic fibrosis. Docs like this help to provide important information to help those of use who may not know as much as we should.

Shortverse had a ton of short docs available to watch, with a variety of topics for just about anything.