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Creator: Hungarian Civil Liberties Union (HCLU)
Issue: deinstitutionalization, community inclusion, independent living
Contact: István Gábor Takács, Stefania Kapronczay takacsistvan@tasz.hu; kapronczay.stefania@tasz.hu

Description: "This new documentary, The Invisible, by the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union offers a clear and moving message of why societies should not lock up people with intellectual disabilities. As the film notes, we still have hundreds of institutions in so-called civilized Europe in 2011 because these places are very convenient. Convenient, that is, except for the people who are forced to live in the institutions.
In Hungary large scale institutions still house 15 thousand people living with disabilities, often under inhumane circumstances. In 1998, the country enacted in domestic law and later in international treaties that these 150 old castles or other buildings in the countryside that house 50-200 people each, will be terminated. Despite the promises, in the last 20 years Hungary invested in renovating mass institutions instead of terminating them. It is no coincidence. These institutions provide workplaces for entire villages at the expense of people living with disabilities. This is Tamás’s first film. The HCLU's film shows the situation of people living in these large scale institutions and calls for the alternatives that provide humane living conditions."