Twin Peaks’ Mädchen Amick to Guest Judge Local Mental Health-Focused Film Festival

Actress Mädchen Amick is best known for her memorable role as Shelly Johnson on Twin Peaks, and more recently, as Alice Cooper on the CW’s Riverdale. But when her son, Sylvester Amick-Alexis, was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder after witnessing a traumatic event on campus during his freshman year of college, his mother pivoted to a different role: mental health advocate.

This weekend, Mädchen will pair both of her passions as a guest judge at The National Alliance on Mental Illness’ (NAMI) Reel Minds Mental Health Film Festival, taking place at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex from 1 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 25.

Now in its sixth year, the festival uses film to broaden NAMI’s mental health advocacy efforts. Among the nine films showing this year are The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story (2023), a short film in which Miles Morales learns to manage his anxiety after a panic attack; Bodywork (2022), about an actor with body-image struggles who gets a dream role that requires him to appear nude onstage; and Out of the Shadows (2025), an exploration of the mental health crisis in America’s rural communities. A pre-festival screening of Anxiety Club (2024) on Friday, October 24, will delve into anxiety struggles through the eyes of some of today’s most popular working comedians.

Susan Holtzman, president and CEO of NAMI Miami-Dade County, helped select the films that will screen at the festival. She says there were close to 100 submissions this year — more than the festival has ever received before. She tells New Times she hopes “people will take a greater awareness of the prevalence of mental illness and mental health conditions around the world” from the final selections.

Like Amick, the rest of the five Reel Minds jurors have experience in film or with mental health advocacy. The actress says navigating the broken mental healthcare system and advocating for her son’s wellness led her family to get into therapy and to launch the Don’t Mind Me Foundation, a nonprofit organization that helps the underinsured enter primary mental health treatment. Don’t Mind Me partners with NAMI and is currently in the beginning stages of opening a treatment center in Palm Springs.

“There’s no black or white in mental health; we’re all shades of gray,” says Amick. “The lucky ones get the diagnosis, and the rest of us are just clawing our way through life and trying to figure it out.” 

Her son is now a certified peer-specialist helping others navigate their diagnoses. Although Amick’s family is open about their struggles, and she welcomes using her platform to help, she says others should not feel they need to do the same. 

“I feel like if you’re going through something, you shouldn’t feel the responsibility to talk openly about your struggles,” she says. “But for the ones that are comfortable….it is so helpful.”

In keeping with its more traditional forms of advocacy, NAMI will host two panels at the festival — Under Pressure: Mental Health Challenges Faced by Young Adults and Community Corrections and Mental Health Recovery. But Holtzman says onscreen storytelling is another powerful outreach tool.

“Sometimes when you see things in a film, you can relate to it in a way that you may not have before,” she says. “Often, so much more can be communicated visually than just with words.”

Reel Minds Mental Health Film Festival 2025. 1 p.m. Saturday, October 25, at the Little Haiti Cultural Complex, 212 NE 59th Terr., Miami; 305-960-2969; miami.gov. Tickets cost $15 via namimiami.org.