Yorkville University student Zac Schraeder was recently a featured panellist on a Conversation on Mental Health Within the LGBTQIA+ Community panel presented by the British Film Institute (BFI).
The free live event took place virtually on Wednesday, Aug. 11 on the Aya Films Facebook page, featuring Wayne Dhesi, the founder of RUComingOut.com, as moderator, and psychotherapist Rahim Thawer as Schraeder’s fellow panelist. You can watch the full webinar here.
“Film is such a great form of expression and a platform to bring forth and discuss important issues like queer mental health,” said Schraeder, a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology student, who also serves as Toronto Film School’s Film Production Program Advisor.
Presented as part of the BFI: Film Feels Hopeful series, the panel discussion will see Schraeder and Thawer tackle some of the important themes in the 2018 Brazilian drama, Sócrates (which is available to stream in Canada on Prime Video).
Lauded by The Guardian as Brazilian-American director Alexandre Moratto’s ‘audacious and elegant debut,’ Sócrates is an award-winning, coming-of-age story that follows a 15-year-old boy living on the margins of São Paulo’s coast. After his mother’s sudden death, Sócrates tries desperately to overcome extreme poverty and homophobia, while also remaining out of the clutches of social services and his estranged father.
Some of the themes Schaeder and Thawer are set to discuss include: the loss of a parent before you can come out; the difficulty of challenging the colonial systems of gender and heteronormativity; internalized shame; and a look at mental health within the LGBTQIA+ community, specifically for those members who are Black, Asian, Minority, Ethnic (BAME).
You can watch the Conversation on Mental Health Within the LGBTQIA+ Community panel event here.
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