‘Selena Gomez: My Mind And Me’ Director On His Subject’s Mental Health Challenges & The Pic She Was “Obsessed” With – Contenders Documentary

deadline.com:

Selena Gomez has been candid about her struggle with mental health issues, including her 2018 bipolar diagnosis. With Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, she and director Alek Keshishian wanted to create a public account of her long battle to recover her mental wellbeing.

Speaking at Deadline’s Contenders Documentary panel for the Apple Original Films pic, Keshishian revealed why Gomez trusted him to tell such a personal story. RELATED: Contenders Documentary — Deadline’s Complete Coverage “I met Selena in 2015 because she told her manager, who happened to be my sister, that she was obsessed with [Keshishian’s 1991 Madonna docu] Truth or Dare,” he said. “She had watched it seven times while she was in Hawaii, and she said she found it so authentic and so inspiring and real.

So we met, and that’s how the first connection happened.” Together they created a deeply personal and revealing film, with Gomez openly discussing her stay in mental health facilities.

Keshishian shared that the singer’s health struggles were so great that he canceled their first attempt to create a film together. “She asked me if I would do her tour doc for [Gomez’s 2015 album] Revival, and I said, ‘I’m not sure you’re going to be comfortable with what true cinéma vérité filmmaking is like.