S10 is a 19 year old singer and hip-hop artist. This year she'll represent The Netherlands at the Eurovision Song Contest.
Anyone listening to the idiosyncratic hip-hop of S10 (Stien Den Hollander) will immediately hear that the 19-year-old artist has a heavy past behind her. She hears voices in her head, spent six months in a psychiatric institution, struggled with psychoses and struggled with suicidal thoughts.
She was able to process these experiences by making music. Now she is doing much better, but she will have to deal with these issues for the rest of her life. In this 35-minute documentary you see the personal story of an artist who became entangled in the merry-go-round of the mental health care system, but also has the resilience to come out stronger and now wants to help others through her music.
The mini-albums Antipsychotica and Lithium brought her a lot of attention and success and the stages are getting bigger and bigger. The success also brings difficult questions. Does she really want all those eyes on her? Can she handle the ever-increasing pressure? These are questions every teenager struggles with, but in Stien's case they are under the magnifying glass.
I think it's important to tell my story because there are still many abuses in psychiatry,' says Stien herself. I'm doing well, despite all the trouble I've been through. I hope to use this to start a conversation about mental health care.
Made in 2019 by by Timo Pisart and Kilian Kayser
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