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No Kidding! Me Too...A Film About Depression

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On May 12, 2012, Diversity Theatre's 5th annual FREE MOSAIC Film Festival will screen the film, No Kidding! Me Too produced by Joey Pantoliano at 1: 00 P.M. at the Monroe County Public Library. Diversity Theatre is partnering with Mental Health America and NAMI to promote awareness of mental health issues with the aim of helping to eradicate the stigma of mental illness in Bloomington

Babita Upadhyay is the voluntary chair person of this years' festival. She deprecates her own importance."I don't want to say that I'm a chair person, because it's a team work, but" –she laughs-"I happen to channel all the news from here to there and around as well. It was Audrey Heller, who's been associated with Diversity Theatre for the past twenty-five plus years who came up with the idea of doing an annual film festival in partnership with other community organizations."

Updhyay joined Mosaic Film Festival in 2007. So, she's been with Mosaic from the very beginning. "I joined as a member from the Asian Culture Center at that time because of the focus on race and ethnicity issues and I really liked. Today, I do represent in a way my IU Office of Multi-cultural Initiatives which is under Diversity, Equality and Multi-cultural affairs and my own membership in the community."

Jane McLeod, President of the Monroe County Chapter of Mental Health America will be one of the participants in the discussion following the film. She's already seen No Kidding! Me Too. "It's a documentary film produced by Joey Pantoliano who played Ralphie on the Soprano. It uses humor and personal stories including Pantoliano's own personal struggles with depression to present a really very honest portrayal of what it's like to live with a mental disorder. The film provides very important information about rates of mental disorders in the population, its effects on families, the association of substance abuse with mental disorders and treatment options, but it does so in a very engaging and entertaining way. So it doesn't feel at all like a dry film. It's actually quite a bit of fun to watch."

Also sponsoring the film festival are the City of Bloomington's Community and Family Resources Department, the Monroe County Public Library, and IU's Office of Multicultural Initiatives.

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