“One For Sorrow, Two For Joy” By Joseph Harrington
A dissection of BPD and those that live with it, Jenna is a fascinating character who's diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder creates huge struggles for her everyday life. The film examines how she copes with the disorder, some of the challenges she faces and how she uses her artwork to channel her emotions into something positive.
From The Director
In England, we went into our third lockdown just after Christmas 2020. I started the New Year (2021) initially optimistic but very quickly, as all of my commercial projects were canceled and with my partner being unable to work, a huge amount of anxiety and depression hit me. We are young parents, with at that time a 2 and 4 year old as well as both being self-employed. With not much to do I decided to turn back to my ultimate passion, I want more than anything to make documentaries.
After finding a story and a huge amount of potential within Jenna I shot a few days with her over January and February, editing the project on the side while also balancing family and commercial projects. I was very conscious not to rush this, at many points I would have low spells and decide the film was shit and not worth pursuing, or that I had done something fundamentally awful and ruined it. In my heart though I knew this was more about my surroundings at the time, the negativity I was feeling personally was being reflected onto the film and I was creating a complex around editing it.
During harder days on many occasions I got up from my desk and just said to myself ’not today’, I’m not in the right frame of mind, I’m low, unhappy, anxious and I’m not doing this edit justice, I need to go home, and chill out. The constant voice of self-doubt was the biggest challenge to overcome, so by taking my time and chipping away slowly at the edit I was able to grow in confidence, realize that this film was actually going to be my best yet and I was able to find more enjoyment in it.
The film went through a very heavy reviewing process, I shoved everyone I knew in front of it for constant feedback, trying to squeeze as much insight into it and make it the best I possibly could. I loved every minute of making this film and learnt some really important lessons, the first was to put as little pressure on yourself as possible and to ENJOY the process, secondly I learnt to work my project around my family and my emotions.
Finishing this film gave me the confidence to constantly create new work and indulge in passion projects. I’m beyond grateful for the huge amount of effort Jenna put into it and I hope people resonate with her story and reflect on their own.
Credits
Directed, Filmed & Edited by Joseph Harrington / @JosephHarrington_
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