BREAKTHROUGH:
A MENTAL
HEALTH JOURNEY
BREAKTHROUGH: A MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEY
The purpose of this film is to show the importance of mental health to every American. With a desire to make an impact and change lives, Josh Painter, Bobbie Dyer, Justin Snyder, and Joshua Adams partnered to create a film that visually told the story of mental health in America. With the help of our investors and Mendx Studios, we put together a documentary that will educate people and bring real positive change to the way Americans view mental health.
Anissa (New York City, NY)
Anissa is an optimistic woman who captivates people with her joy and enthusiasm. Anissa discusses the struggle with moving to a small town at a young age and the identity issues she faced with her perception of her body. She touches on the struggles of body positivity, her battle with an eating disorder, and the impact of being sexually harassed as a woman.
Adrian (Satellite Beach, FL)
Adrian is a husband, father, and veteran that has had multiple tours of duty within the military service. Adrian has gained first-hand experience of the mental health impact their time in the military makes on our servicemen and women.
Bobbie (Melbourne, FL)
Bobbie is a community leader and business owner. Bobbie, unfortunately, lost her son, Spencer, suddenly to a drug poisoning incident. Bobbie now approaches life with how she could have better prepared and helped her son with his addiction and how she can influence others to take note of this issue.
Spencer (Austin, TX)
Spencer is a college student and former athlete for the University of Texas track team. Spencer’s track career was cut short due to a leg injury that required surgery. Track and athletics provided Spencer a release from his mental health struggles, and after losing this release, Spencer fell into a depression and alcohol addiction.
Emily (Los Angeles, CA)
Emily is a strong-willed woman passionate about helping others. Emily talks about her trauma of dealing with a sexual assault encounter on her high school campus and her experience with molestation. The two stories are intertwined and discuss why some traumatic events are more challenging to talk about than others and the mental health impact left on the victim long after the event.
What
Makes
our Film
Unique?
What Makes our Film Unique?
This film is different from other documentaries and films about mental health.
We choose to highlight three pillars in our film as key differentiators.
Our film
chooses to
focus on
everyday
Americans.
Our film chooses to focus on everyday Americans.
We advocate and hear from people of different backgrounds, lifestyles, races, and genders. We believe the more people we can listen to, the better chances we have to connect with people in our society, and they have to connect with our message. Diversity within our characters and experts has been a cornerstone of this film, and we want to make sure everyone feels they can relate to someone in this film in one way or another.
We discuss real
and everyday
mental health
issues that people
face throughout
their lives.
We discuss real and everyday mental health issues that people face throughout their lives.
Most documentaries choose to shed light on celebrities’ mental health or people with extreme cases when in reality, this is not relatable to most of the population. It is easy to think that if you have not experienced something severe or traumatic that you do not have to worry about your mental health. We see that mental health is important to everyone by hearing from real everyday people.
We take a visual
approach to
showing what
mental health
can feel like and
how it looks.
We take a visual approach to showing what mental health can feel like and how it looks.
By creating what we call “Mindspaces” for our characters, we can get a glimpse into what is going on inside these people. This is unique and important as mental illness or unease is not a tangible thing. If we can show people what mental health can look and feel like, we can help bridge the gap from sympathy to empathy.
THE EXPERTS INVOLVED
Dr. Mike Ronsisvalle
Clinical Psychologist, Author, Founder of Livewell Behavioral Health
Clinical Psychologist, Author,
Founder of Livewell Behavioral Health
Ashley Zarmanian
Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Eating Disorder Intuitive Therapist
Licensed Mental Health Counselor,
Eating Disorder Intuitive Therapist
Damaris Escarment
Licensed Mental Health Counselor, M.A., Inpatient Substance Abuse Counselor
Licensed Mental Health Counselor, M.A.,
Inpatient Substance Abuse Counselor
Brian Gong, NCC
Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Complex Trauma and Addiction
Licensed Mental Health Counselor,
Complex Trauma and Addiction
230+ RSVPs to Our Local Showing
PEOPLE BEHIND THE PROJECT
Josh Painter, Director
Josh is a filmmaker with a passion for telling captivating stories. Storytelling has always fascinated him as he attended Sam Houston State University, to obtain his degree in filmmaking, and worked on various diverse sets in his career. Josh has been working in the video and filmmaking industry for the past five years. Being able to find a passion that allowed him to create and express himself has led Josh to creating hundreds of videos that span over a multitude of different project types. Having a past documentary, “Coming Clean”, has allowed him to understand more about the hard work that goes into creating a project from beginning to end
Justin Snyder, DP and Editor
Justin is a multi-hyphenate cinematographer-producer-writer-director-editor who loves to tell impactful stories through the art of filmmaking. Having a special needs younger brother who had difficulty communicating, Justin saw the power and impact that watching movies had on his brother which inspired him to create content that he and his brother could share and enjoy together. Training and working with filmmaking masters like Mitchell Amundsen (Renfield, Now You See Me), Anastas N. Michos (Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, The First Purge), Shane Hurbult (Terminator Salvation, Resident Alien), Justin has earned over 40 American Advertising Awards for his visual storytelling in cinematography, sound design, editing and production and is Partner and Director at Mendx Studios.
Joshua is the “Head Honcho” at Rock Paper Simple as well as Partner and CEO of Mendx Studios. He’s been in the marketing and media creation space for over 20 years. Joshua’s ability to build and empower his team across his different companies has enabled his teams to earn over 100 American Advertising Awards including 5 Judges Choice and Best of Show as well as GrowFL’s Florida Companies to Watch, Gold and Silver Angel Awards, Central Florida Humanitarians, the Business Acceleration Award and the twice-earned Cocoa Beach Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year award. His entrepreneurial spirit, care for his community, and business savvy has earned him LEAD Brevard’s “4 under 40” award and one of SCB’s Business Leaders of the Year.
Bobbie Dyer, Executive Producer
Bobbie Dyer is President of Dyer Mortgage and is a Nationwide Top Producer with over 10,000 home loan closings. In addition she is a national speaker and trainer and the recipient of numerous awards for production, management, leadership, philanthropy and volunteerism. Dyer is Executive Producer for the 2022 film “Breakthrough: A Mental Health Journey” and is a published author. She also writes a finance and real estate column for Florida Today/USA Today network and has been published worldwide. Her community involvement includes being a Trustee at Florida Institute of Technology and performing as a live auctioneer for area charities.
To reach us regarding the documentary, give our main line at
Rock Paper Simple a call and ask for Joshua Adams.
321-626-2172
