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In 1998, Hungary enacted in domestic law and later in international treaties that mass institutions housing 50-200 people will be terminated and new kinds of services with humane living conditions will be provided for people living with disabilities. Until today, there are at least 15 thousand people living in 150 old castles or other types of buildings in the countryside, far away from their families and their communities, mostly under humiliating circumstances.
Less expensive alternatives to mass institutions that provide humane living conditions do exist in Hungary, for example living communities for 10 persons in family housing, but these NGO run services are rare and hard to access. It is not a coincidence that although it promised the opposite, in the last 20 years, Hungary invested in renovating mass institutions instead of terminating those. These institutions provide workplaces for entire villages at the expense of people living with disabilities.
The film was directed and almost entirely filmed by Tamás Verdes, who himself is not a qualified filmmaker. He advocates for the rights of the intellectually disabled within the HCLU's Patients’ Rights Program. He learned video production at the HCLU, which uses video as an advocacy tool in more and more human rights issues since its launch in 2008.
The film is licensed with Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons license, so please watch it, spread it so more and more people can see it!