Peter Curran

This year’s Festival Presenter will be Peter Curran, the Irish BBC Radio 4 broadcaster, writer & documentary maker.

Peter has produced and directed many UK projects on Irish history, language and culture for institutions such as The Imperial War Museum and the BBC, including The Past is a Foreign Country; Collecting the Troubles; The Hidden History of Irish Place Names. He is co-host of the BBC Sounds comedy podcast, Bunk Bed

Maria Mcateer

Our Kids Our Lives

Suicide is the biggest killer of young people in the UK. With over 50% of mental health issues established by the age of 14 and 1 in 4 school children self-harming.


In this feature length documentary Ben Akers, talks to parents, kids and experts and looks for solutions on how we can help out kids become mentally strong.

He tries to discover what we can do to help our next generation. From body image to self-harm and societal pressures in our expanding digital world.

Ben explores the power of talking, because if we get this right, we can help young people manage their mental health not just for today but for generations to come.

Because our kids are our future. Our Kids Our Lives.

TRIGGER WARNING: deals with suicide, self-harm, eating disorders

Ben Akers

Wendy Young

Wendy Young is a published poet/performer who cut her teeth with Survivors Poetry and had her first elated experience of two poems published in South Bank Poetry in 2013. Latest venture is as a presenter on local K2K Radio playing interesting varied music and interviewing fellow poets and writers and people who silently contribute to making life a better place.

Say Something

Made during lock down as a collaboration between the contributor Niamh age 17 at the time and director Maddie, it explores her journey through alcohol dependence and mental ill health while navigating school.

Niamh’s message of hope and healing is a call out to other young people to ask for help if they are struggling.

TRIGGER WARNING: deals with alcohol dependence

Maddie Kitchen FRSA

Maddie is a lived experience Producer/Director and fellow of the Royal Society for Arts. Nominated for her:

‘Use of film to advocate for diverse and inclusive mental health and addiction recovery’

She set up Sobriety Films UK as a non profit social enterprise in 2019 to champion recovery in those suffering from addiction, mental I’ll health & trauma.

SFUK make films, run recovery filmmaking workshops and hold special event screenings with Q&A’s.

www.sobrietyfilms.com

Sacha Wood

Sacha Wood is an English-Irish singer-songwriter and freelance musician. Her songs often deal with mental health, using playful lyrics and nostalgic music to evoke experiences of depression and dissociation. Her latest album, Catharsis, centres on the healing power of music as a space for vulnerability, connection and transformation, and she is delighted that some of these songs get to play a part in the conversation at SHOUT London. Sacha is also a volunteer with Unreal UK, a charity for those living with DPDR (Depersonalisation and Derealisation Disorder).

Depersonalisation and Derealisation Disorder Chat

Sacha and Maria chat with Peter Curran about DPDR (Depersonalisation and Derealisation Disorder)

Sacha Wood is an English-Irish singer-songwriter and freelance musician. Her songs often deal with mental health, using playful lyrics and nostalgic music to evoke experiences of depression and dissociation. Her latest album, Catharsis, centres on the healing power of music as a space for vulnerability, connection and transformation, and she is delighted that some of these songs get to play a part in the conversation at SHOUT London. Sacha is also a volunteer with Unreal UK, a charity for those living with DPDR (Depersonalisation and Derealisation Disorder).

Ronald Amanze

Ronald Amanze, the founder of Talk Dementia, is a Dementia Champion with the Alzheimer’s Society, a Dementia Diarist with DEEP and an Ambassador for The Stroke Association, working to ensure there is better provision for the wider sections of our communities in dementia service and dementia research. His background as a music producer and musician has led him to be passionate about the role of creativity in improving the quality-of-life experience for all those living with dementia.

Disordered

Having moved away from home to attend medical school,
Rebecca’s plans to start a new life are interrupted when she
becomes aware that her younger sister is battling with an eating
disorder. Rebecca returns home and struggles along with the
rest of the family to try and beat the disorder.
The family are put under increasing pressure as Emily continues
to get worse. Having to rally around Emily, whose illness is trying
it’s hardest to push them away. Rebecca gradually begins to
understand what her sister is battling and the family come
together to face their darkest hour.

Michelle Collins

Short Film & Exhibition SHELLS WITHOUT AN ECHO by Yasmin Nicholas

Q&A Multimedia Artist Yasmin Nicholas

Joshua Nunn

Joshua is a natural musician with a flair for composing, playing, and lyric writing as well as turning his hand to poetry. With his eyes set on Film Direction, Script Writing and Comedic Acting, he takes pride in being able to speak up, offering valuable insight with creativity or logical thought process with a fresh approach to solution finding.

Neurodivergence discussion on ADHD & PTSD

Dominique has a Master of Arts with Merit in Documentary Practice from the University of Creative Arts, Farnham. She won the Personal Narrative Award at the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival for her emotionally challenging documentary SANCTIONED. She is the Creative Director of Silver Mountain Productions, Head of Marketing for female empowering social enterprise, Wise Women, as well as being the content creator, resident film maker and photographer for a number or organisations in the UK. She is also the drum & bass DJ under her stage name Pinks.

Joshua is a natural musician with a flair for composing, playing, and lyric writing as well as turning his hand to poetry. With his eyes set on Film Direction, Script Writing and Comedic Acting, he takes pride in being able to speak up, offering valuable insight with creativity or logical thought process with a fresh approach to solution finding.

Janet Reeve

Janet Reeve is delighted to be part of the first SHOUT festival with a reading of the title poem from her collection – MAKE IT OKAY. Her quirky verse charts the joy, depression, pain, frivolity, greed, confusion and passion of a heart determined to remain open to love. In 2015, Janet’s novel The Shark Party, an artworld thriller, was called ‘A brave, enthralling first book’ for highlighting intimate partner violence before #MeToo was born. Find @janetreevewarrior on IG and glimpse the nature images that fire her imagination.

A discussion on Neurodiversity, Creativity and Mental Health with Neil Avery & Jon Salmon

A discussion on Neurodiversity, Creativity and Mental Health following the screening of the Talk It Out music video by Neil Avery and Nigel Planer.

Neil Avery

Neil was diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia, dyscalculia about 5 years ago. His diagnosis came from his daughter’s diagnosis, and he told us that as he was reading her notes he realised “that’s me!”

Jon Salmon

Jon is an award-winning video producer, a digital pioneer, co-founder of branded entertainment agency Byte Entertainment and Co-CEO of the Speakers Collective. While Jon talks openly about his mental health he has only recently disclosed his dyslexia diagnosis due to the stigma and misunderstanding of the diagnosis.

Sean Kaluarachchi

A discussion with Sean Kaluarachchi who works in the London Irish Centre’s Survivors Integrated Service, his remit is in supporting survivors of Mother & Baby and County Homes in advance of the upcoming redress scheme, and he runs a freephone response line that covers the UK. He will discuss his work with the survivor community, along with some of his own personal understanding of trauma and abuse. Sean is also a practicing musician, who has played for a number of years around London, Liverpool and his home city of Belfast.