Does this conversation sound familiar to you?

"How are you doing?"
"I'm fine, how about you?"

Though depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses may be invisible to the world around us, for many of us it feels like an open secret that we should try to hide. We try to rationalize it as a passing feeling or a natural reaction to an unfortunate event in our lives. But during my freshman year of college, it spiraled into a life-threatening crisis that I could no longer keep silent. Every waking hour, I dreaded the things that used to make me happy, hated the people I loved, and struggled to find a reason to keep going in life.

But three years and countless therapy sessions later, I finally felt I had left my depression miles away in the rearview mirror. Yet, after deciding to move to California following my senior year, I couldn't help but reflect on the depression that came with my last major life transition. As the summer was fast approaching, I would spend hours quietly reflecting on the loneliness of moving away from the people I love and trust. Among those many amazing folks were best friends, Bryan, Gurk, and Keith, who helped get me through the turmoil of my freshman year. But without them, I feared my loneliness would turn into a deep depression that would knock me down again.

Entering my last term of the year at the University of Washington - Seattle, I enrolled in a class entitled “The Art of the Short Doc.” There, the amazing Warren Etheredge challenged us to develop an idea for a short documentary we would make in the final half of the class. So, naturally, I pitched a documentary about how and why Bryan, Gurk, Keith, and I were going our separate ways to pursue our dream careers. But as we began the interview process, the story quickly evolved into something different with the help of two fantastic filmmakers on our team, Aiden Boomer and Moi. Recognizing how emotionally Bryan, Gurk, and Keith talked about my freshman-year struggles with depression, they pushed to refocus the story on our reflections of time in our lives. So together, we reworked the story in the last three weeks of our production, including shooting much-needed extra footage and pulling together all-night editing sessions.

But through it all, despite not completing color grading and our sound design, we completed a cut of the film that the three of us felt very proud to present. Though leading up to our class screening, I was scared about sharing the film with strangers. The darkest secret of my life thus far was about to be projected in a dark room for strangers to see. Frankly, it was fucking terrifying. But following the screening, I was very surprised. Not because it was a gratifying experience (which it was) but because so many strangers and loved ones shared their own mental health stories in the following weeks with us. It was simply so amazing to see this extremely stigmatized topic talked about openly and candidly. Regardless of our, Aiden, Moi, and I couldn't just ignore the impact of our story that day. If it could remind people that openly talking about depression helps minimize the magnified loneliness that comes with it, then maybe it can do some good with that in the world.

So after that screening, we embarked on a long, six-month post-production process that included bringing on a wonderful composer, Brandon Krebs, and a local post-production audio house, Bad Animals. And after completing our color grading and adding some minor VFX work, we are now ready to begin submitting The Blue Hour to film festivals. And this is where you come in! By sharing or donating to this fundraising campaign, you can help us cover our post-production and film festival costs. With your help, we want to share this story and continue larger efforts to destigmatize conversations about mental health!

To those who have managed to reach the end, thank you! There aren't enough words to properly express my gratitude to every person interested in helping us share The Blue Hour with the world beyond those classroom walls in Seattle. Please share and follow this page, our website, and our social media handles as we begin our film festival journey for The Blue Hour. Thanks!

Much Love,

Rohan