The state of insanity

Written by Francesco Cordio, Leonardo Angelini, Diego Galli

Directed by Francesco Cordio

With Luigi Rigoni

Produced by Francesco Cordio Teatri di Nina and Independent Zoo Troupe

SYNOPSIS
In Italy there are 6 OPG, commonly called criminal asylums, in which about 1500 people are locked up. The first-person account of an actor, ex-inmate in one of these hospitals, is intertwined with scenes filmed, without prior notice, in these places that have been “forgotten” even by the State. These facilities have remained substantially extraneous and impermeable to the reformed psychiatric culture, and the mechanism of detention has not been effected by the law passed in 1978 that called for the closure of psychiatric hospitals. Many lawyers, psychiatrists, politicians, columnists and citizens who are active in humanitarian associations recognize that the persistence of the OPGs and of the same procedures for admittance are unconstitutional. A Parliamentary Board of Inquiry has brought to light the state of abandon, degradation and neglect of the inmates, and has enabled a law to pass that requires the closure of these institutions. The film intends to accompany, and to let the spectator experience, these places where people, since the beginning of the 1900s, have been exiled and dehumanized by pharmacological treatment, by the degradation of solitary confinement cells and by restraint beds. This documentary brings to light the state of abandon of these psychiatric facilities and their privation of the most elementary constitutional rights to heath, medical treatment, life of many of the mental ill.

Ilaria Alpi Award 2013:  Special Event
IDFA 2013:  Docs for Sale Selection

Siciliambiente: Audience Award

Premio Globo d’Oro 2012: Nomination Best director, section documentaries

Bif&st 2013 – Bari International Film Festival: Official selection – section Documentaries

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