In 2000 an art gallery opened in Chapel Hill and I was fortunate enough to be able to write about its first exhibit. “Brushes with Life: Art, Artists, and Mental Illness,” on the third floor of the UNC Neuroscience hospital, exhibits work by former and current patients of the Schizophrenia Treatment and Evaluation Program (STEP) as well as clients from Club Nova, the clubhouse for people with mental health issues in Carrboro.

The artwork, which included works of prose and poetry as well as visual art, was outstanding. Vibrant and poignant, the collection drew appreciative viewers and sold like hotcakes. New exhibits go up every six months.

Now, almost eight years later, with the gallery still drawing an eager audience, comes a 45-minute documentary about the gallery and its artists. It is a must-see film; as soon as I finished viewing it last week with the filmmaker Philip Brubaker, I was ready to watch it again. It is full of surprise, sadness, joy, hope, and romance.

I thought I had a pretty good understanding about what it must mean to have mental health issues. Brubaker’s movie was humbling — it made me realize I have so far to go.

The film -- which carries the same name as the gallery, “Brushes With Life: Art, Artists and Mental Illness” — debuted at the Carrboro Century Center last fall. If you missed that showing, there’s another chance to catch it this month. The film will be shown Feb. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Sunrise Church (at the intersection of New Hope Church Road and I-40 north of Chapel Hill).

The event is free, but donations to purchase art supplies for gallery artists will be appreciated. If you have questions, call Peter Kramer at 913-4055.

Brubaker isn’t just a filmmaker; he’s an artist whose work has been exhibited at the Brushes With Life gallery. He was a patient seven years ago at the hospital, diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.

“In 2001, after I was released from the hospital, I heard about the gallery, and I wanted to get involved,” he said. “I was going to film school in the years up until my hospitalization but didn’t do much art.”

He did do photography, though. His mother suggested he submit one of his shots, a striking closeup image of a sunflower with its petals just beginning to unfurl.

“I didn’t even think about the stigma aspect of showing in the gallery,” Brubaker said. “I thought it would be cool and exciting and I agreed to do it.” The photo was a big hit. Brubaker sold a number of prints, and the experience was a big confidence booster for the artist.

Over time, the idea crept up on Brubaker to go beyond just exhibiting in the gallery and make a documentary film about it.

He said the hardest part of producing it was juggling a full-time job at Weaver Street Market with shooting. The other difficult part was getting some of the eight artists he interviewed to open up to him in front of the camera.

“I used to do a lot of yoga, and they teach you to open up to something greater,” Brubaker said. “It means to kind of withdraw and try and be receptive rather than spouting off about what you feel. I would try to be an active listener and withdraw.”

It worked. The artists’ words wrapped around me and still won’t let go. They speak not only about the process of creating art and showing in the gallery, but about the difficulty of living in a society that in many ways still doesn’t understand or accept mental illness. “So many people want to throw us away,” an artist named Rhonda says in Brubaker’s film.

The artists he captured on camera have opened my eyes and made me a more empathetic person.

Brubaker said that what he hopes people will take away from the movie is “that people with mental health issues are just regular folk.”

The film also does a great job of portraying his subjects’ extraordinary art; it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if they all get inquiries about doing commissions as more people see the movie.

The showing of the film on Feb. 21 is sponsored by the Healthy Carolinians of Orange County, the Hillsborough Arts Council, and the Nothing to Hide Mental Health Coalition.

Mark Sullivan is the Executive Director of the Mental Health Association in Orange County and the Chair of the Healthy Carolinians, who initiated the Nothing to Hide coalition. It grew out of assessments done by the Healthy Carolinians every four years soliciting feedback from the community about health concerns in the community.

The Nothing to Hide Coalition was started in 2005 after the most recent assessment found metal health was a big issue.

“We brought together a group of community partners to work together on trying to come up with ways to address mental health and particularly the stigma around it,” Sullivan said.

The original idea was to do a one-time project to focus on those issues, but the success of that first project -- an art exhibit of photographs of families who have at least one person dealing with mental health issues — pushed the group forward.

“Our kind of niche has been using the arts to draw people in and address stigma,” Sullivan said.

He said he appreciates the willingness of the artists in Brubaker’s film to come forward and speak so candidly about their illness.

“It really puts a human face on what people don’t like to think about, or when they do they often think of the most extreme cases,” he said. “They think of the criminally insane people in seclusion, which is a minute portion that doesn’t represent what mental illness is like for most people.” Paula Mayence, a registered nurse in the UNC Department of Psychiatry, is one of the founders of the Brushes with Life gallery. Brubaker interviewed her for his documentary. She saw the film, along with more than 200 other viewers, at its initial public screening.

“I was so moved by what the artists had to say and how genuine they were,” Mayence said. “Even for me it was a whole different side of their person, their being that I wasn’t aware of.”

She said the film helps viewers focus on its subjects as people and artists, rather than on their illness.

“One of the biggest messages of this film is that there is hope,” Mayence said. “It really makes you aware of how difficult it is to have mental illness, but that there is also hope.”

Five stars to Brubaker.