Ken Burns documentary on youth mental health to be screened at White House

Ken Burns of College Behind Bars speaks during the PBS segment of the Summer 2019 Television Critics Association Press Tour 2019 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 29, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.

A Ken Burns documentary focused on youth mental health is getting a screening at the White House.

Jill Biden will host a presentation on Wednesday of “Hiding in Plain Sight: Youth Mental Illness,” the White House announced Friday.

The PBS documentary “follows the mental health journeys of more than 20 young Americans,” and includes conversations with their teachers, parents and friends, as well as health care providers and mental health experts.

Burns touted the project in an interview with ITK earlier this year, calling it “a really powerful film” that’s “going to actually save lives among the teen population.”

The 68-year-old acclaimed filmmaker, who is poised to attend the screening in Washington along with co-producers and directors Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers and several of the youth featured in the documentary, described today’s teens as “so beset, particularly in the pandemic, by mental health issues.”

The gathering in the East Room of the White House comes months after the Bidens hosted their first official film screening back in April, showing HBO’s “The Survivor” to mark Holocaust Remembrance Week.

Updated June 18 at 8:34 p.m.

Tags Documentary Jill Biden Ken Burns mental health white house youth mental health

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