Directors' Statements
-Vanessa Roth
Mix those realities with the inherent challenges of growing up, whatever pre-disposition their genetic makeup gave them at birth and the way they have been influenced by me and the rest of our family and you have set the perfect table for anxiety to blossom and flourish. So, when Laura first approached me in 2019, I was thrilled that she wanted to make this film - but I just didn't have the emotional capacity to be the one to make it. Instead, I went on to make other films, and my kids kept moving along carrying all they were carrying and coping the best they could.
And then it was 2020. Over the past 2 years I have seen every one of their peers struggle with anxiety to a degree I had never seen before. And while journeying through my own life with my kids, Laura came back to me after production and asked if I'd turn the content she gathered with kids, parents, and experts around the country into a film that might reach into this moment and give some support to the families across the country who are at a loss for what to do to help their kids. This time I said yes, because as close to home as I thought anxiety was in 2019 - now I felt it was seeping through the walls of the house, into our bones; and the best way through it would be to understand it more and to turn my own anxiety into doing something perhaps meaningful by creating this film that will hopefully be a touch point for kids, teens, and families, as well as a message and call to action directed at policy makers, mental health providers and corporations who target young people.
We have collectively been hit by so much loss, sorrow, fear and uncertainty, especially these past few years, and we as the adults have not been able to assure our kids that there will be light at the end of this rough time. We have never navigated the world they are inheriting so they are on their own to chart a path that only they can lead. But I do the best I can as a mom, knowing I don't have all the answers, but hope that by contributing what I could to making this film that our kids feel seen, heard and supported; and that we as a society make the urgent changes needed to give them all the resources to create community and meaning for themselves and their future.”