Synopsis: Kallie has suffered from treatment resistant depression for fourteen years. Out of options and sick of dead ends she decides to seek an alternative therapy in the heart of the French Quarter, New Orleans through Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation.
Eight Weeks to Happy is a documentary short that records Kallie’s moods week by week as magnetic pulses attempt to re-fire the latent neurons in her brain.
The treatment is ultimately a success allowing her to have a quality of life she never thought possible, one free of depression.

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The experience of radical, but not well-known treatment is something I will forever be grateful for. This process allowed me to take the next steps in my healing journey. My hope for making this film is that it can be seen by those who can benefit from Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation that are not yet aware of the possible benefits it can offer.

We are human beings in human bodies, but we are also more than our physical selves. We are the creativity we release into the world — all that we do and make, and all that we make beautiful, defines us.

This is the impetus behind the work of Kali, an enigmatic and fascinating multimedia artist, born and raised in a poor family in rural Louisiana. After she moved from her childhood home to the French Quarter of New Orleans, Kali began to grapple with all that she had survived. In 2019, she sought help for a lifelong treatment-resistant mental illness, which was first misdiagnosed as depression but was later found to be borderline personality disorder, also known as BPD. She wrote and directed a short film about this experience, 8 Weeks to Happy, which has been screened online and in multiple international film festivals, including the 2021 ARFF festival in Barcelona, where it was one of only four short films shortlisted for an Audience Award.

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