Farmers and filmmakers have banded together at Tatyoon to create a movie to help push a conversation about wellbeing, and suicide in rural communities.
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Mixed farmer, mental health advocate and now-leading actress Leila McDougall, Tatyoon, said she started writing the script for a movie, which will premiere in three weeks, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I was a teacher and got sick of teaching," she said.
"So I thought I've got this script, I've got a chance at life and I want to make a difference in the world."
Ms McDougall and her husband Sean founded the Mellow in the Yellow initiative in 2014, an annual day event in a canola crop to promote conversations about farmers' health and wellbeing.
She said they had never experienced film production or had any previous career experience in creating a film.
"During COVID we couldn't run the event, and we wanted to find ways to still get the message out there," she said.
"I'm just someone who gets a kick out of throwing myself in the deep end and seeing how I go."
They hosted the film cast, crew and extras on the 1200-hectare farm for a seven-week-long filming project, which is usually home to Merino sheep and beef cattle.
She said they were only releasing the movies in cinemas as an independent film, with no government funding, but sourced the movie through donations and investments.
Meanwhile, the community helped bring the movie to life with the local police officer, football club, and contract shearers taking place in the film as extras.
Just a Farmer executive producer Maxine Green, Inverell, NSW, said the movie was a "beautiful love story", centred around mental health and suicide.
"It's where our main character Alison finds herself suddenly without her husband, having to raise two young children as well as care for her alcoholic father-in-law and maintain the property," she said.
"It's not all doom and gloom, it does show how suicide has a ripple effect in small communities."
Ms Green said she had witnessed the "ripple effect" suicide had on families and communities, which sparked her passion to be involved in the project.
"My father-in-law took his life on the family farm in 2016 and that's why I wanted to get involved," she said.
"He did all the announcing on the campdrafts, he was the life of the party and that life was taken far too early.
"If we were more aware of how to gain access to help, we would've been able to save one life."
She said the movie also explored farmers' financial difficulties, generational debt, and weather troubles.
"It also shows the resilience of farmers' wives and how a community comes together during a really challenging time," she said.
"We have this generational trauma where we don't talk about it, and the next generation don't, but if you can talk about things rather than burying it, it's better.
"Our mission is to really dismantle the stigma associated with suicide," she said.
She said they hoped to dedicate some of the proceeds back into regional towns, to approach parliamentary ministers and inquire about a lack of health service availability in rural towns.
"We need to make country life more appealing, and have better grants and a better service," she said.
"Farmers don't tend to use these services overly well, because firstly, they're not advocated enough in rural areas."
Ms McDougall said Just a Farmer will premiere at Armadale Cinema, NSW, and Inverell Cinema on March 15, and be available in several cinemas across Australia from March 21.
"I don't think I've really had time to process the enormity of it all," Ms McDougall said.
"It's actually going to the cinema, it's going out to the world for people to have an opinion on and to watch it.
"I hope it has the desired outcome that we set out to achieve, to start a conversation, bring awareness and make our audience feel."
A list of the cinemas showing Just a Farmer can be found here.
Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; Men's Referral Service 1300 776 491; beyondblue 1300 224 636.