MTV Entertainment Studios just set the premiere date for the coming-of-age film Pink Skies Ahead. The film touches on mental health issues, and is a part of MTV’s Mental Health is Health initiative. Pink Skies Ahead will be premiering on Saturday, May 8th at 9:00PM ET/PT on MTV.
The synopsis of the show states “Set in Los Angeles in 1998, it follows Winona (Barden). Who after dropping out of college and moving back home to live with her parents, is diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. Skeptical of her doctor’s opinion — she hasn’t had a panic attack after all —Winona carries on with her wild lifestyle. Only when things begin to truly unravel around her, does she reluctantly decide to see a therapist and face her truths.”
The writer and director of the film Kelly Oxford shared, “Pink Skies Ahead is loosely based on events that occurred when I was nineteen years old. It is a manifestation and reckoning with my own anxiety struggles. Purely out of self-protection, I’ve spent my life creating a firmly independent exterior surface that does not reflect my inner turmoil or compulsive and obsessive worried thoughts. As a forty-two-year-old woman, I’m still grappling with shame and denial of my own inner workings as an anxious person. The catharsis of writing and directing Pink Skies Ahead was a huge step in accepting myself. And I hope our film helps others feel less shame in their “not normal” feelings than I did.”
Pink Skies Ahead stars Jessica Barden (End of the F***ing World, The New Romantic) and singer Mary J. Blige (The Umbrella Academy). The movie also stars Devon Bostick (The 100, Diary of a Wimpy Kid), Marcia Gay Harden (Mystic River, Pollock), Michael McKean (Better Call Saul, This Is Spinal Tap). Plus Lewis Pullman (Bad Times at the El Royale, The Strangers: Prey at Night), Evan Ross Cameron (The United States vs. Billie Holiday, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay), Odeya Rush (Goosebumps, Lady Bird). The New York Times best-selling author, Kelly Oxford, wrote and directed the film.
