HCLU Film 2014

In 2014, the HCLU became 20 years old. On this occasion we had several online and offline events, and we produced many movies. We had an online video contest for young people, filmed our events and produced videos with pupils who spoke about issues related to personal freedom. Our most successful video this year was made for the “Room in the 8th District” campaign. The 20 minute long documentary has been viewed more than a hundred thousand times online, and several television and written magazine reports were made based on it. The film introduces us to the “legal highs” injecting program in the 8th District of Budapest, at a time when the mayor made the needle exchange public enemy number one and closed it down. We call attention to the dangers of an HIV epidemic and suggest drug consumption rooms as alternative to more prohibition. The Drugreporter video team was invited to New Zealand to report about the innovative approach to legal highs. We filmed at the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne, which was overshadowed by the tragedy of flight MH17. We campaigned for funding of harm reduction in Serbia with our partner ReGeneracia. In Hungary we ran a unique anti-stigma campaign on Facebook. On the Facebook page “Roller-coaster - diary of a little bit schizo guy,” we got to know Bálint, who lives with mental disabilities. He was a fictional character, played by the actor Béla Mészáros, but his story was based on real life events. This year we held four trainings in video advocacy, the largest one for 15 drug user activists, who are members of the International Network of People Who Use Drugs. This year we won second prize at the Annual Kreatív Web Video Award, for our movie on the harm reduction crisis in Romania. We won third prize at the Romani film fest for our movie on the radical right wing militia “Better future association.” Click on the document above to browse the movies we made in 2014!