26 August 2020

A documentary on the subject of male suicides that CNWL staff helped in making happen has been shortlisted for a prestigious award.

Suicidal: In our own words aired on Channel 5 in September last year and was an extremely moving film on this sensitive subject.

It is now in the running for the title of Best Single Documentary – Domestic within the Grierson Awards – a scheme run by The Grierson Trust, which exists to promote documentary film making and to celebrate the work of pioneering Scottish documentary maker John Grierson.

Details of the shortlisting are here: https://griersontrust.org/grierson-awards/the-grierson-awards/shortlist/

Below is what we initially wrote about the airing of the documentary:

Channel 5 Documentary – “Suicidal” - to be shown on Tuesday 10 September

CNWL staff have worked with Channel 5 to make a documentary about suicide in men.

We also have staff speaking in the 30 minute programme that follows; ‘how to help people who are talking about suicide.’

Suicide is a very complicated and extremely sensitive topic and the six men’s stories are well told over the film.

We agreed to the project because we agreed with the production values – discussed in advance – of fully respecting the people in the film, a scrupulous approach to confidentiality and safeguarding whilst exploring the difficult topic.

Channel 5’s notice of the programme, says,

This 90 minute film on Channel 5 (Tuesday 10 September at 9.15pm) explores the complex, misunderstood and challenging subject of male suicide. 12 men in the UK take their lives every day, and it remains the biggest killer for men under the age of 45.

This powerful film explores the issue of suicide through the experiences of six men who are passing through the Riverside Mental Health Centre in Hillingdon, North West London. This 90-minute documentary will explore the issue in the UK by focusing on the unique work carried out by the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, with stories of six men under their care who talk openly about what they are experiencing in an intimate way never seen before on television. 

Each of the six men is in the depths of a mental health emergency, determined to take their life and convinced that it is no longer worth living.

It’s the job of the remarkable doctors and nurses to try and keep them alive and offer intense support to try and lift them out of an acute crisis.

The film documents the men from their point of view – in remarkable interviews and actuality during their suicidal episodes  – from their arrival in the NHS system, be that on an inpatient ward, or in the A and E department or via a 24-hour support helpline. Each of the men has just tried to take their lives or are actively contemplating the decision to immediately end it all.

The documentary explores why the men have got to this point, from loss to loneliness, from bullying to impending bereavement. The reasons are multi layered, never simple and have left these men just wanting to die.

From 19-year old Jack who cannot cope with life following the loss of his beloved mother, to forces man Stewart who is struggling with the generational changes in masculinity. The documentary also explores the modern epidemic of isolation through the eyes of 27-year old Leo, and teenager Charlie who has never recovered from horrific childhood bullying. The NHS team have to try and help 20 year old Reece, who relies on the police to help him when he is overcome by his thoughts about killing himself; and work out whether 63 year old Ron who is carefully planning his own suicide by hoarding pills, will actually go through with it.