Hartbeat-Produced Stand-Up Doc ‘Group Therapy’ Debuts on Prime Video | Exclusive

“Group Therapy,” an intimate exploration of mental health from some of the comedians who’ve shared their darkest — and funniest — life struggles on stage, is now streaming on Prime Video, TheWrap can reveal exclusively.

The feature-length documentary from Emmy-nominated filmmaker Neil Berkeley chronicles a group therapy session — led by actor Neil Patrick Harris — with Tig Notaro, Mike Birbiglia, Gary Gulman, Atsuko Osaka, Nicole Byer and British comic London Hughes, as they discuss the relationship between their professional and mental health journeys.

Notaro shares her devastating cancer diagnosis; Birbiglia jokes about his bizarre sleepwalking nightmares; Gulman shares his lifelong battle with depression; Japanese comic Atsuko Osaka talks about her mother’s schizophrenia; Nicole Byer jokes that she loses her keys a few times a day because of ADHD; and Hughes dealt with insecurity and lack of opportunity as a young Black comic in the UK.

Berkeley also interviews each comedian one-on-one and in other set-ups from the continuous two-day shoot in Atlanta, Georgia. The film is produced by Hartbeat and AXA, an insurance brand with a special focus on mental health, and their agency partners, WPP.

“The jumping off point was getting top-notch comedians together, folks who may have been newer to the scene and folks that have really storied careers, but all of whom are making a big impact in comedy at this moment and digging beneath the surface to find what their mental health struggles have been,” co-producer Luke Kelly-Clyne told TheWrap.

Hartbeat also wanted to explore how those mental health struggles have impacted each comic’s material and provided them with a sort of therapy by talking about it on stage. “The real core message is that sharing is therapeutic,” said Kelly-Clyne.

Hughes and Berkeley celebrated the streaming release of part of a Tastemaker screening at Hartbeat’s West Hollywood offices on March 26.

Berkeley, who previously directed the 2017 biopic “Gilbert” about Gilbert Gottfried, told TheWrap what he hopes audiences take away from the film: “I hope people laugh. I also hope people hear stories stories that are familiar to them and their own experience. And they can say, ‘Oh, I went through that too.'”

He added, “You don’t have to make a joke out of it and take it on stage. You can just say, ‘Hey, have you experienced this? I experienced it, let’s talk about it.”

“Group Therapy” is now streaming on Prime Video.

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