Denver Film Festival: Let's talk about suicide

When suicide is the leading cause of death among young people between 10 and 24, as it is in Colorado, we have a problem — and we need to talk about it.

We need to talk about suicide.

The 45th Denver Film Festival wrapped on Sunday with a program that included a screening of “My Sister Liv,” a fiercely empathetic documentary that gives the often-hushed topic of suicide a much-needed megaphone. And it was received on Sunday by a symphony of sniffles. Largely because the film is framed as an achingly poignant love letter from Tess Kunik to her younger sister and best friend.

Olivia Kunik was my kind of kid: A musically gifted outsider and “yet-to-be-discovered comedienne” who, like many kids fleeing the nonstop judgment, shame and bullying of social media, found her place to belong in her high-school theater department. Olivia found her light in the Niwot High School productions of “The Sound of Music” and “Into the Woods.”

If only life never extended beyond the line of a high-school proscenium stage, a lot more kids would still be alive.

Olivia came from a loving home but she was always battling anxiety and other insecurities that were compounded by a sexual assault. She was studying early childhood education at the University of Northern Colorado when she made her final exit in the early hours of Jan. 8, 2019. But as her sister would painfully come to discover: Suicide doesn’t end a person’s pain. It merely transfers it into the marrow of everyone who ever loved them.

Olivia’s death led Tess and her mother, Honey Beuf, to form a nonprofit called The Liv Project, which strives to normalize conversations around suicide. They even developed a game that draws players into meaningful conversations in an entertaining way.

The big myth about suicide is that even raising the subject might somehow move a vulnerable young person one step closer toward doing it — a belief that has no basis in fact. The best advice from the experts:

Don’t be afraid to approach and ask a young person if they are having thoughts of self-harm or suicide. Listen more than speak. Then reach out for professional help.

“My Sister Liv” surely will be an effective tool for schools and suicide-prevention organizations, but it deserves wider distribution.

“It means so much for us to be here,” said Tess Kunik. “Colorado is our home state, and we are hoping that by sharing Liv’s story and the stories of many other young voices, we can stop the stigma around mental health and really get the conversation started.”

Big day(s) for Colorado music

The two screenings of “The Elephant 6 Recording Co” documentary ​turned into two big, happy Denver music family reunions. The film looks back at the remarkable early days of Elephant 6, a loose collective/commune of roustabout musicians who spawned some of the most remarkable independent, experimental bands of 1995-2005, notably The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel and Elf Power. This was intentionally low-fidelity music that embraced experimental, four-track recording techniques.

The unofficial mastermind-blower was Robert Schneider, who changed the trajectory of the Denver music landscape when he moved here from Ruston, La., and started an unapologetically happy and high-energy band called The Apples in Stereo. The two weekend screenings brought out past and present members of iconic Elephant 6 (and non-Elephant 6) Denver bands like Dressy Bessy, the Minders, Breezy Porticos, Hot IQs, Von Hemmling, Sissy Fuzz and Thank God for Astronauts. Among the dozens of local rockers in attendance were Tammy Ealom, Andy Falconetti, Bryan Feuchtinger, Eric Allen and even Paul Conly from the theremin-loving psychedelic band Lothar & the Hand People. That band, which launched in 1965, was the first to tour and record using synthesizers, according to G. Brown of the Colorado Music Experience.

So what is/was Elephant 6?

“I think the film does a good job explaining something that is fairly obtuse and complicated,” said Allen, bass player for the Apples in Stereo and Von Hemmling. He was around when the first Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel records were being finished.

“I remember thinking they were great but never thinking they would have legs or that people would still be talking about them 25 years later,” he said.

Quote of the Day

"There are certain things you can't sing yourself out of." – Jeff Mangum,  founder of Neutral Milk Hotel

Sheila McCarthy honored

The last big screening of the festival was the forthcoming “Women Talking,” the true 2010 story of women in a Mennonite colony who were raped persistently by the men in their community. Before it was shown, actor Sheila McCarthy received Denver Film's Career Achievement Award. She said appearing in a movie directed by Sarah Polley and alongside a cast that includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy and Frances McDormand “was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.” She called the dark film “a reimagined fable of what might happen under certain circumstances.”

Hunting ‘The Whale’

Meanwhile, screenwriter Samuel D. Hunter appeared before a special presentation of “The Whale” at the Denver Botanic Gardens, and he again humbly acknowledged the Denver Center for the Performing Arts’ role in birthing the story as a play 10 years ago. He says the story of a dying man’s last stab at connecting with his teenage daughter “is fundamentally grounded in hope and humanity — and those are in short supply these days.”

Kent Thompson, who was the artistic director of the DCPA Theatre Company when it green-lit “The Whale” as a play in 2012, was in attendance.

“This is a story about the power of love,” Thompson said. “And I can’t imagine a better time for this play and for this playwright.”

Coming up today

Some of the festival’s “best of” awards were announced Sunday, but the big one is the “Audience Favorite,” which will be revealed Monday. (We’ll put out the complete list at that time.)

For your consideration

If it took you six minutes to read this story, consider that in that time, 10 people have committed suicide somewhere.

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