Exclusive: Indo-Canadian Actress Shreya Patel looks back to her first film ‘Vivid’, shares her own experience with Schizophrenia patients

Shreya Patel is an Indo-Canadian actress and director, She has been very vocal about raising awareness regarding mental health and has been continuously working towards empowering women and bringing their issues to light, she’s also been credited with the women’s achiever award.

In an exclusive interview with DigiHunt, Businessupturn, the actress spoke in-depth about her extensive works in cinema and theatre over the past few years.

Shreya Patel’s best performances, in terms of cinema, have been in Francis Luta’s, Vivid. The actress also shared that the film is a real-life story about a girl who was suffering from schizophrenia. The short film went on to win prestigious awards in categories of ‘Best Short Film’ and ‘Independent Horror Film’ and was highly praised by the critics and the audience.

The actress reveals that how her working with the cinematographer Francis Luta in the film ‘Vivid’ was a “dream come true”, it was overall a very soulful experience for her as she got to know more about the people who suffered from Schizophrenia. She, in an attempt to remain ‘authentic and real’ to the script of the movie, talked and observed several people who had schizophreniac episodes, and to her surprise, everyone around the globe to whom she talks with said the same things, about “how the government or the aliens are controlling them” or are doing stuff to them which led to these episodes.

She also talks about that how the people with schizophrenia were aware that they have Schizophrenia and kept medicines as a tool, and talked openly about episodes as they were aware of it.