Docu-Films Will Premiere on One Mind All Media Social Platforms Beginning August 19
Shorts Spotlight Groundbreaking Miami-Dade County Jail Diversion Program Viewed as National Model for Decriminalizing Mental Illness
RUTHERFORD, Calif. — August 19, 2020 — The One Mind All Media division of national mental health and brain research nonprofit One Mind today launched the first of its new five-part series of digital-first short docu-films examining mental illness and the criminal justice system. The impactful and timely shorts will roll out virtually on One Mind All Media’s social media platforms throughout the next eight days.
One Mind All Media’s digital-first short docu-film series is being released amid the national outcry for reform of the country’s law enforcement departments and criminal justice system. The docu-film series explores the pioneering work of the Miami-Dade Criminal Mental Health Project (CMHP), an approach hailed as a national model for decriminalizing mental illness. A people-powered community-wide safety net, CMHP navigates the court system to steer people with mental illness — as their legal cases hang in the balance — on a path from jail to recovery.
One Mind All Media’s docu-films delve into the myriad problems that people with brain illness face both in their daily lives and in interactions with the criminal justice system. The shorts take a closer look at Miami-Dade’s Jail Diversion Program (JDP), which diverts people with mental illness out of the criminal justice system and intro treatment. The series also spotlights Miami-Dade’s Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), which teaches police best practices to handle people with mental illness.
Filmmakers Gabriel London and Charles Sadoff originally spent time in the Miami-Dade area for their PBS documentary “The Definition of Insanity,” which focused on the pioneering officials in the county who have worked to decriminalize mental health issues.
“The mass incarceration of individuals with brain illness in the United States has reached a critical and alarming stage,” said Brandon Staglin, President of One Mind. “A person in the midst of a brain health crisis is far more likely to encounter police than get medical help and as a result, two million people with serious mental illness are incarcerated each year. We hope these timely videos will help bring awareness of different kinds of community models to better support people with mental illness and keep them out of jails.”
Dalton Delan, Managing Director of One Mind All Media, added that, “We are proud to present the work of nonfiction filmmakers Gabriel London and Charles Sadoff, who have been at the forefront of electronic journalism related to mental health and criminal justice.” Added Delan, “As the first documentary series from One Mind All Media, it is fitting that we are able to profile not only a model program for the nation, but our strong commitment to showcasing diversity.”
Episodes include:
Episode 1 (August 19): Justin Volpe is a peer counselor with the Jail Diversion Program, and suffers from mental illness himself and was once a JDP client. Now he uses his own experiences with mental illness and recovery to shepherd clients on the path to recovery.
Episode 2 (August 21): Follow Stephon Berry through his journey as a JDP client, which includes regular visits to Dade Family Counseling for group and individual therapy, as well as medication. It’s a regimen he hopes can help him maintain work and find stability long after court supervision ends.
Episode 3 (August 24): Ride along with Miami Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) officer Stephanie Ulmer as she puts her training to use to defuse and de-escalate mental health emergencies.
Episode 4 (August 26): Go inside the remarkably successful 40 hour CIT classes that teach police in Miami-Dade County how to handle people with mental illness, reducing violence and improving outcomes.
Episode 5 (August 27): Follow JDP client Shawna on her path to recovery, culminating in her graduation from the program in an emotional ceremony.
Learn more and watch all five videos on the One Mind All Media page.
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About One Mind
Launched in 1995 by Shari and Garen Staglin as their means to “run toward the problem” of their son’s schizophrenia diagnosis, One Mind is today a leading mental health non-profit that heals lives by direct support for neuropsychiatric brain research. By convening the brightest minds in brain science and advocacy around a collective vision of “Accelerating Brain Health for All”, One Mind is advancing a three-pronged program strategy of accelerating discoveries, improving services and transforming culture. Through such achievements as enrolling over 10,000 patients in innovative clinical studies and the One Mind at Work initiative that has brought supportive workplace mental health practices to over 6 million employees, One Mind is creating a world where all facing brain health challenges can build healthy, productive lives. Brandon Staglin, whose own experiences triggered the creation of the non-profit, now serves as its President, exemplifying the change One Mind seeks in its disruptive research and workplace initiatives.
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About the filmmakers
Gabriel London began his career as a documentary filmmaker and social impact campaign director as an undergraduate at Pomona College, where he won the Albert R. Broccoli film award for his prison documentary, Turned Out. Continuing with criminal justice storytelling, in 2001 he produced and directed No Escape: Prison Rape in America, two short films that accompanied the Human Rights Watch report of the same name that were honored with a Soros Criminal Justice Award. In 2004, London went on to produce Drew Barrymore’s MTV documentary about youth voting, The Best Place to Start, and in 2008, he directed Snoop Dogg’s autobiographical streets-to-prison story, Youth Authority: California for Spike TV. In 2014, his multi-award-winning documentary, The Mind of Mark DeFriest, received wide acclaim at film festivals and went on to help reduce the subject’s sentence by over 70 years, before being shown theatrically and on Showtime.
Over ten years as a partner in the social impact creative agency, Found Object, Gabriel directed purpose-driven campaigns on issues such as veteran’s health, clean energy and climate change. His work on campaigns for Viacom — Spike’s Veterans Operation Wellness (VOW) — and New York State (Reforming the Energy Vision or “REV4NY”) combined storytelling with social activation around major policy issues of today. He now serves as the Creative Director for Apeel Sciences, a California based startup that developed a plant-based solution to help fight food waste and create a more participatory food system.
Charlie Sadoff began his career as an assistant editor in New York City working on the Emmy Award winning Liquid Television and Peter Gabriel’s music video Steam (MTV Music Video Award for Best Editing). In 1994, Sadoff was hired by TNT & Cartoon Network to help launch the channels in Asia. Three years later, Sadoff joined Miramax Films as an editor and producer of feature film trailers and TV campaigns including the Oscar Winning Life is Beautiful. In 1999, Sadoff signed on as a producer with the entertainment division of the NBA and in 2000 for HBO’s Inside the NFL. He was a writer, producer and editor of the 10-hour ESPN documentary The Rites of Autumn. Since then he has produced several documentaries for the NBA, ESPN and CBS as well as two documentary specials for The History Channel. In 2009, Charlie produced the feature documentary DreamRiders (Sheffield Film Festival) and the feature doc Running America. He was writer, producer and editor of Cut Poison Burn (2010 Mill Valley Festival) and co-producer of The Harvest from Executive producers Eva Longoria and Academy Award winners Shine Global. In 2014 Charlie produced the Mind of Mark DeFriest which was picked up by Showtime after a nationwide theatrical run. In 2019 he co-produced Shine Global’s Virtually Free and was a director and producer for Paramount Network’s Take Action Films series. Most recently he produced and wrote The Definition of Insanity which aired on PBS in 2020.
Charlie is a partner at the social impact creative agency Found Object and has served as a judge for the Emmy Awards, a speaker at the Real Screen Conference and the New York Film Council and as a guest lecturer at the graduate school of journalism at Columbia University. He has won multiple Golden Trailer, Cynopsis Social Good, Promax Gold and BDA Awards. Charlie is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University.