If your child
was suffering,
would you know?
Chasing Silence follows a father's search for answers after almost losing his daughter to a 6-year storm of eating disorders and self-harm. Across Australia, teenagers are turning to pain and silence to survive their inner turmoil.
This raw, unfiltered documentary sits with the brutal paradox that eating disorders are only the symptom, pain is the relief, and that's what they become addicted to.
The silent numbers.
MENTAL ILLNESS.
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition. Death comes from organ damage, sudden cardiac arrest, or suicide. Often before families see any visible physical changes. Despite this, eating disorders recieve one of the lowest research funding of any serious mental illness in Australia.
Early detection is not optional. It is a matter of life and death.
Australians are directly affected by an eating disorder right now. This is on top of the 1.1 million currently living with an eating disorder. An estimated 4 million parents, siblings, and carers are left struggling to understand why it is happening and how to help. Eating disorders are serious, complex mental illnesses. Not a phase. Not a lifestyle choice. For many teenagers, restriction and ritual are a physiological coping mechanism for a dysregulated brain trying to find safety.
Australian teenagers show signs of disordered eating and the numbers are shifting fast. 12% of teens aged 15–19 have a diagnosable eating disorder, up over 20% in the last decade. 1 in 3 cases are now a boy, up 150% from a decade ago. Indigenous teens are 28% more likely to show signs than their non-Indigenous peers.
of mental health challenges start before age 25. 50% start before age 14, yet there is a massive delay between the first signs and the first treatment. Suicide is the leading cause of death for young Australians, yet most wait years to get help. We can’t afford to wait. Early intervention is the key difference between a temporary struggle and a lifelong battle.
“I don’t want to make this film, I have to. For 6 years, I’ve watched someone I love get lost in the storm: eating disorders, self-harm and multiple attempts at silence.
I’ve seen the hiding. The hunger. The harm. The addictions. The moments of relief that only come through pain. Because self-harm and eating disorders aren’t the problem, they’re just the symptom. ”
“I thought it was just adolescence. Mood swings, pulling away, becoming a fussy eating. By the time I understood what was going on, the eating disorder already had a full hold of her.”
Help us finish
this film.
Asking parents to pay to access life-saving information for their kids feels wrong, is wrong.
4.4 million Australian parents, carers, and family members are living with the impact of an eating disorder right now. Most have no idea what they are looking at until it is too late. Those families are already stretched financially and emotionally. So we are committed to keeping this film free for as many parents as possible, for as long as possible.
But films like this cost real money to make and real money to keep free. We are a small independent production house shining light on a life-threatening topic most people do not want to talk about. We need a community behind us that believes these kids deserve a fighting chance, and that every parent deserves to see this film FOR FREE before it is too late.
$50 helps us film another minute of this story. $10 puts it in front of a family who needs it. Every dollar helps a family before it's too late.
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A film built on
lived experience
and clinical expertise
Chasing Silence is built on the lived experience of families who have been through it, and grounded by the expert knowledge of the clinicians and researchers who understand it best. Because the only way to make a film like this right is to make it with the right people.
Eating Disorders Families Australia is the only national organisation providing support, education, advocacy, and counselling SOLELY for carers and families impacted by an eating disorder.
Within the film, EDFA bridge the gap between the teenager's pain and the family's need for practical tools. This ensures the story is led by lived experience as well as connecting parents directly to peer-led support and specialist advocacy.
InsideOut is Australia's national institute for research, translation, and clinical excellence in eating disorders. With resources, rigour and perseverance, it aims to transform the landscape for people with eating disorders in this country and ultimately find a cure. The Institute comprises a team of expert researchers, clinicians, and public policymakers committed to ensuring every person with an eating disorder has access to the best possible care.
As a key expert voice in Chasing Silence, InsideOut Institute translates complex science into clear, understandable information providing families with a practical roadmap for medical support and early intervention.
Butterfly Foundation is Australia's national charity for eating disorders and body image issues, supporting individuals, families, and carers across every stage of the journey. They provide evidence-based support services, education, and advocacy to reduce the harm caused by eating disorders nationwide.
Within Chasing Silence, Butterfly Foundation brings frontline clinical insight into the behaviours driving eating disorders and self-harm, ensuring the film reflects the real patterns families encounter and connecting viewers directly to national support services.
SDECC is a Not-for-Profit organisation which specialises in providing free counselling and support for young people aged 12-25 with alcohol and other drugs (AOD) and other co-occurring mental health challenges, and their families across Sydney.
We have partnered with SDECC to provide the clinical framework for our lived experience protocols, trauma-informed oversight, and specialist mental health support for both subjects in Chasing Silence and the crew filming it. This ensures a safe and ethical environment for all involved.
Dr Natalie Matosin is a neuroscientist and Head of the MINDS Lab at the University of Sydney, where her research examines how stress physically reshapes the human brain at a molecular and cellular level. Her work has shown that stress experienced early in life leaves lasting changes in brain tissue that can raise the risk of psychiatric disorders later on.
In Chasing Silence, Dr Matosin helps parents understand the biology behind what they are witnessing. She explains how chronic stress alters the brain's structure and function, and why the behaviours teenagers turn to for relief can become deeply ingrained responses, not choices, but patterns set in motion by a brain under constant pressure.
Not just presenting the story, but living it. Tim's perspective shines essential light as a parent with a teenager living with eating disorders, self-harm, suicide attempts, and OCD, as he tries to keep his daughter alive.
Living with eating disorders, self-harm, suicide attempts, and OCD. Now 18. Still struggling. Still here. Ava shares her story on her own terms. Not knowing if she's transform through the hardest struggles to stay alive.
Bullied over his sister's trauma, Sonny retreated into a world of anxiety and suicidal silence. He shows us how rituals that start as safety can turn into a prison and how isolation becomes the most dangerous symptom of all.
Parents rebuilding life after losing their daughter to an eating disorder. Their story reveals the lasting impact on families who missed the warning signs, and the courage it takes to keep speaking when silence feels safer.
Teenager navigating the tightrope between control, fear, and understanding. Her story reflects the push and pull of love and frustration every parent faces when their child's pain becomes too hard to reach.