A 16-year Brandon boy has taken on bullying in a serious way. Brett Chrest aspires to be a professional filmmaker one day, and made a short film about bullying and suicide.
Chrest acted in the film. Titled “Help,” it illustrates what a person being bullied can go through, and how someone feels when they are thinking about suicide. It was posted online April 11, 2014.
He said his situation never came close to what his character went through, but bullying when he was younger gave him feelings of being alone and depressed.
“(The character is) going through a lot of depression, essentially being pushed over the edge and bottling up emotions," said Chrest from Brandon.
He said nobody really knows what goes on when people get bullied and the path to feeling better means talking about it and letting others what's going on.
He said the piece is an effort to keep the conversation going and a start making more projects that matter and can maybe help others.
He said the Amanda Todd case has become a game changer, with the recent arrest of a suspect accused in her case in the Netherlands is good news, but calls the process to catch perpetrators too slow.
“People can hide behind a computer and cause all this damage,” he said.
Todd committed suicide in 2012.
The Canadian Mental Health Association points to suicide as the second leading cause of death in young people.
Chrest’s parents said taking on such a difficult topic in his film has been impressive.
“We're really proud of him. He's always been very creative and always has been since he was tiny,” said his father Rick Chrest.
