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Web series Ghost BFF puts the focus on mental health via two friends. And one of them is dead.

It’s important to talk about mental health. And while Bell does a great job stressing that one day a year in January, it’s something that should be done the other 364 days too.

Launching its first season of 11 episodes, Ghost BFF is available for streaming on Elizabeth Banks’ WhoHaHa’s website now. The brainchild of creator Vanessa Matsui (Lost Girl, Seed), Ghost BFF explores suicide and mental health through the eyes of Amy (Matsui). It’s been three years since Amy’s best friend, Tara (Tiio Horn, Letterkenny) died of a drug overdose. Amy has given up painting, is engaged to Mitchell (Dan Beirne, Space Riders: Division Earth) and battles with anxiety and a bad tummy. Suddenly, Tara appears—her ghost BFF, get it?—and throws Amy’s life into total disarray.

For Matsui, the idea for Ghost BFF came from a deeply personal place.

(l-r) Cristina Rosato and Vanessa Matsui

“It’s loosely inspired by a time when one of my best friends, following a period of depression, almost died by suicide,” Matsui says. “It was a very dark time. And, also, it was coupled with wanting to create my own work and being inspired by incredible female creators.” Ghost BFF is a project three years in the making, first as a short play Matsui performed in a friend’s basement before the possibility of being a short film was explored; ultimately Matsui pitched Ghost BFF as a web series to Katie Nolan (Hot Mom), who partnered to co-write and co-produce it.

The Centre for Mindfulness Studies features in several episodes as Amy strives to explore her own mental health, where she’s going in life and what her relationship with Tara was and still is. There are, of course, characters in Ghost BFF who advise Amy to “snap out” of what she’s going through mentally and stop taking her medication because they think she’s “fine.” It’s frustrating to know there are still people with that attitude towards mental health, and just drives home the need to educate and discuss.

(l-r) Jane Moffat, Dan Beirne, Rick Roberts

Yes, Ghost BFF concerns a serious topic, but it’s not all doom and gloom. There are plenty of laughs thanks to Matusi’s physical humour as Amy, Horn’s foul-mouthed Tara and the gloriously shallow Mitchell, and truly heartfelt moments too. Amy and Tara’s screaming match in a later instalment opens the door to honesty and regret.

“We definitely felt like we were walking a fine line [with the content],” Matsui says. “Obviously, I wanted to be respectful and sensitive to anyone who has suffered from depression or is suffering from depression. But, at the same time, my instinct was always to make this a comedy. Comedy can be cathartic. Sometimes through pain comedy emerges.”

Ghost BFF is available for streaming on WhoHaHa’s website.

Images courtesy of Babe Nation Creations.

 

 

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Babe Nations Creations launches digital comedy series Ghost BFF

From a media release:

Babe Nation Creations is challenging the stigma regarding mental health conversation by empowering women to feel confident in their emotions in their new digital comedy series GHOST BFF, set to launch on Elizabeth Banks’ co-founded WhoHaha platform March 1, 2018.

The 11-episode series was created, directed, and written by Vanessa Matsui (Shadowhunters, The Smurfs 2, Lost Girl) and produced and co-written by Babe Nation Creation’s Katie Nolan. The spirited series sees Vanessa Matsui in the lead role, co-starring opposite Tiio Horn (Mohawk, Man in the High Castle), Dan Beirne (Fargo, Reign, Flashpoint), Cristina Rosato (Bull, Real Detective) and Jon Cor (Shadowhunters, Suits).

Ghost BFF follows two best friends, one alive, one dead, across space, time and the suburbs as they struggle to find themselves and right past wrongs following a suicide.

As once-BFFs, Tara and Amy were inseparable. Tara was a reckless musician; Amy, a promising painter. Their friendship was pure, unadulterated fun. But, everything changed when Tara, following a period of depression, killed herself, leaving behind a shattered and heartbroken Amy.

Cut to present day: Tara has been dead for three years and Amy has seemingly moved on; she’s quit painting and is engaged to a nice but conservative guy. Suddenly, Tara appears out of nowhere and a bizarre yet humorous reunion follows. Amy is left with the stunned realization that her now ghost-BFF is back from the dead and her past and future are about to collide.

Lindsay Mackay (Clue Blue, Wet Bum) directed 9 episodes, Vanessa Matsui directed 2 episodes.The series is accompanied by 12 two-minute video segments, Titled Let’s Talk About our Feels to help better address the stimulating topics discussed in the series through the study of Mindfulness. These video segments have been researched and written in collaboration with a team of mental health professionals at the Centre For Mindfulness Studies in

The series is accompanied by 12 two-minute video segments, Titled Let’s Talk About our Feels to help better address the stimulating topics discussed in the series through the study of Mindfulness. These video segments have been researched and written in collaboration with a team of mental health professionals at the Centre For Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, and produced with the participation of the TELUS Fund and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

 

 

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