On Screen/In Person: Holden On

Holden, a small-town football player, fights to keep his mental illness a secret at all costs.?Based on a true story about dual diagnosis and teen suicide.?Holden Layfield helps audiences through his harrowing tale in this film set in the early 1990s. After succumbing to a secret battle with mental illness, 17-year old Holden devolves from a gregarious, small-town Georgian football player to a lost, self-medicating prophet. This important film portrays the complexity of mental illness and suicide in teens, offers insight to prevention, and opens the door to conversation about this difficult but critical community concern.*According to McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, up to 75 percent of youth with substance abuse problems also struggle with psychiatric illness.