Next Talk | Mental Health in a Creative Industry

We’ll explore how creatives, artists, and crew members can maintain their well-being in such a demanding industry — and how personal experiences with mental health challenges, breakdowns, or stigmas can inspire meaningful, impactful projects and even become a source of creative healing. 

We will welcome creatives Maaike Hartjes and Kiki Ho to share some insights from their work and social activism around the theme of mental health. Moderators for the talk will be Anna de Beus and Rosan Boersma from Cinemind, an initiative that researches mental health in the film industry.

MAAIKE HARTJES EN KIKI HO

Maaike Hartjes studied science for a year but then decided to pursue her dream of becoming a comic strip artist. After attending two art academies, she began drawing comics for various newspapers and magazines and worked as a cartoonist for the business world.

After a period of excessive workloads, she suffered burn-out and started keeping a illustrated diary. This ‘Burnout Diary’ was published by Nijgh&Van Ditmar and formed the basis for the animated film ‘I’m Perfectly Fine’ by Studio Pupil/Studio Souza, on which Maaike worked closely as art director.

Today, Maaike still works as a live cartoonist at events and is mainly active on Instagram, where she mixes personal comics with social and activist topics.

Siu Ki (Kiki) Ho is a documentary filmmaker and programme director at The Big Hoof. After completing her Master’s in Documentary Filmmaking in London, she directed several short films that have been screened at festivals and symposia worldwide. In and alongside her work als a filmmaker, Kiki is dedicated to fighting the stigma surrounding mental health and to portraying neurodiversity in a positive and authentic light. Her debut feature documentary, ‘ Zie Je, ’ premiered at the Dutch Film festival and received the Dutch Film Critic Award 2025.

ROSAN BOERSMA EN ANNA DE BEUS
After years of working in the film and TV industry and becoming familiar with the challenges associated with working in a creative sector, Rosan Boersma and Anna de Beus developed a shared vision of promoting social sustainability and mental health in the film sector.
This led to the creation of CINEMIND, a platform through which they conduct research into mental health in the film and TV sector (for example, via the Confession Caravan at the NFF) and offer workshops to bring about practical changes and, in the same time, raising awareness on this subject.