Original subtitles

"Fit to be untied"

a movie by

music by

The characters in this film really exist and every reference to them is therefore real.

The movie features documentary material made for the district of Parma called "None or All"

All or nothing, none or all On your own you have no chance

Guns or chains the choice All or nothing, none or all

In Italy, despite scandals and complaints,

private institutions for youths called subnormal continue to exist.

Behind those walls, not only cruelty and sadism is happening.

Here thousands of youths work and produce

for shady owners, who make immeasurable profits.

Without help, without salary, without unions, without the right to strike,

these handicapped youngsters are actually the most exploited workers on earth.

From the orphanage to the asylum, the destiny of these outcasts is doomed.

It's clear that the intellectual level of some of them will never permit them

to read or write.

Pedagogist

Yet it's not important for them to learn to write or read.

It's important for them to live, to move, to know things.

In my opinion there is no limit...

We are always surprised. When we let them outside

they act differently, in a way we would never imagine...

obtaining such positive elements we would never expect them to get.

We work on the integration of these youngsters.

We can do it and we will be able to do it into society,

but it doesn't mean we create happy people.

There'll be some "Others", misfits in a misfits' society.

Other abnormals in an abnormals' society.

I would say "That guy has been at Villa Giardini!"

I could see on his forehead a label,

not visible in the mirror but there was one...

that's how one knows it...

...either you should send me home because they sent me here to be cured

You want to go home so...

Yet...

In this way, 91 asylums prospered in our country,

in which 170,000 inmates were hospitalized annually.

Parma, left wing administration...

From 1968 till now, the new psychiatric policy commissioned from the Region

agreed the progressive discharge of 50% of the patients

from Colorno's psychiatric hospital.

People discharged can benefit from several services offered by their district.

Two sheltered workshops, an old people's home,

three farms, two community centres, five mental health centres

and a hundred apartments.

Yet most important

is that the battle against asylums and exclusion permeates into the city

and the struggle occurs exactly where mental illness arises and develops:

among the poorest classes,

in the suburbs and particularly in depressed areas of the mountains.

What does your family consist of?

What do you mean? Explain it.

How many and who we are?

There are four of us.

Me, Paolo...

my sister Mariangela,

Luciano,

and Zavaroni Gabriella, who is my mother.

Don't you know your father?

I don't know my father, never seen him.

You don't know him...

Do you know his name? - Yes, Notari Egisto.

What's his job?

I think he sells chestnuts or lemons, I don't know... usually...

Do you visit him sometimes?

No.

Is there somebody you're more attached to, among social workers and nurses?

In the district? Mario Tommasini.

Councillor. But from Montagnano, nobody.

Why not?

All unpleasant.

What about Angela?

Unpleasant.

You threw some knives at her...

What do you need to be happy?

They need to leave me alone.

Paolo has got an extraordinary independence,

he's been able to survive in all kind of situations he finds himself.

Problems will come maybe later when he'll be 17 or 20 years old.

Right now the problem is to let Paolo live a less bad life.

He has this mother who declares the greatest affection for him,

but then disappears from home for 24 hours without even preparing meals...

No, he was in the Montagnano Institution for a few months, but then came out saying

there they aren't normal while he is normal, so he decided to leave.

He was right.

Doesn't he listen to you?

No, not too much.

He makes me run, I'm in a mess here.

Paolo, get away from the bed!

Don't show yourself too much because I don't want it.

What else can you tell us?

Stop it! Not much, I told you.

Look, Paolo, how you're making it all dirty!

I don't think the Institution is a solution.

Paolo! Go away! Look how dirty the sheets are!

Stop it!

Come on! Later I need to go to work!

Stop it! Look at yourself. Calm down.

Take a close up of us!

Yes, OK.

Close up of stupidity.

A good close up. A nice smile!

If he would freak out...

He's very smart.

Come on, Paolo, stop it, please!

What a nice position...

like salami.

Paolo, stop it!

He's like this because of strangers.

Stop it, Paolo! It's all dirty. I must go to work and the sheets need cleaning.

Look, stupid! Go away! You're even hurting yourself!

Think you're clever, look at the sheets!

Now stop it. I need to go to work!

Paolo stop, it. You're hurting him, Don't you see he can't stand it any more?

Come one, leave him.

Yes, it's better.

You like also to play but...

Come away from that pillow, come on!

Marco, what title will this documentary have?

A title? "A moron like you"...

Jackass!

Sorry guys, I need to go for a while.

Stop it, Paolo.

I only read the Gospel.

Is this kid reading the Gospel?

Why should I care about the church?

It's too bad.

Is it good?

It's alright.

Not this. This one. - Show it to the camera!

This is also nice! - Down there she has something, ahah!

Do you like it?

Do you wanna see this one in the middle?

Don't move it!

It's too hard trying to leave him with my father, he's been with my sister...

Excuse me, lady, can I play with you?

Paolo had a very violent reaction to the teachers.

He started trembling with convulsions and his face turned pale.

He took a rod and started to beat the teachers,

interspersed with quite violent epithets.

"Fuck off, bitch"... things like that.

Anyway "bitch" was the most used one.

Offending more women than men.

We found out the meaning of this in the relationship he has with his mother.

Scuffles with classmates, intolerance for teachers, insults, running outdoors...

climbing out of windows and escaping from school and so on.

After three days...

I took him back,

running after him because of a new escape attempt.

As I took his arm, he...

he had a really instinctive violent reaction, starting to insult me.

I can't remember exactly the insults,

I remember that I answered him

to go fuck himself and that if he doesn't like

school he could just stroll around, making us all happy...

He told me I'm an asshole and I answered his mother is a bitch...

We went on like this at full speed of insult...

until he understood I was much better than him in offending a person, even more evil.

Besides he knew that the freedom of making a mess is a right.

You have the right to do it because you need it.

To sing, to scream, to break something. You need this kind of violence.

He has never been in a school

and he felt himself as inferior.

In my opinion, debatable,

his behaviour can be seen as a sort of payback which he wanted because

others were able to gain certain achievements

and he needed to have some kind of balance.

Something... which at this point was...

was about throwing things, climbing ledges...

He doesn't want to come back in?

He doesn't want to and if you insist he starts to answer badly.

He has a really precise idea about school, very rigid idea. More than we can imagine.

It was humiliating for him because he didn't pass to the second class,

while everyone else did.

A much more rigid idea than what we would ever have.

Maybe it's something left over from his experience with the Institution.

The psychiatrist isn't coming.

If you come in, Paolo, we would be very happy.

Fuck off!

This is his usual answer.

What do you think about Paolo?

Well, in my opinion

we can see we are really forward in studying and he does these stupid things...

to show us that he's at our same level.

Let's go back to the question made by this man.

He asked if you are satisfied by school

related with the problem of our classmate Paolo.

Last time regarding our teasing Bernardi...

He took a lock from him

and threw it out of the window.

So that morning during art class he was telling me off about it, insulting.

So then I had enough and I told him:

"Look, we're not holding you here at school."

So he said he wanted to speak later with school principal.

Somebody else told me that

if it wasn't depending on them

they could have kicked me out whenever they wanted.

That's what was said at the class meeting. We can decide about him.

To stand by him and be good to him,

to treat him like one of us and make him understand this.

He's not different from us, he's like us.

Can you repeat the question?

The best friends you had in this class were the one who didn't accept your behaviour.

And were telling you to take care and to write your exercises and sit down...

Just a few told me this.

There are. And those are your best friends.

Do you believe it?

No.

Oh sure! When I wasn't giving you something...

When you got something from me you were good but otherwise...

Opportunists!

Aren't you thinking about going back to school?

Do you want it or not?

I would like and I wouldn't.

There is a reason...

We've made a program with you. If you want we can revise it and restart together.

You should remember that I tore it up, that program!

I did it even in front of the school principal who gave it to me.

How was the program?

One hour per day...

It was a program trying to involve Paolo

in something which he could find interesting and engage in.

I think he is good with manual activities...

like technical and artistic drawing, gymnastics

He was really good in drawing class.

The teacher was trying to help him

Actually I had liked all the subjects... all of them...

I was just looking for somebody to help me, to be honest.

Listen to me!

The first time I came in class they didn't let me glue or cut things, nothing.

I got disappointed because I couldn't do anything.

Meanwhile all other groups had their task.

One was glueing or cutting or measuring or drawing.

Yet the teacher taught you to make that sort of racket

which you broke on his head later.

I didn't mean to do it...

Yet you made it.

When you arrived in class you broke it...

He was never studying with us or making things together.

He was always outside.

Excuse me!

Was I the only one who wasn't studying and doing homework?

So what?

You were always outside!

Yes, I was. At least I didn't stay inside pretending to study.

You didn't even have your books.

Listen, Paolo. Once you got mad

because your mother talked about things you didn't want made public...

You don't want to speak about your situation at home, right?

Well, that's enough!

I'll heat up if you go on! - Why?

Because I will! Come on!

Let's stop it!

You don't want us to speak about your mother?

Don't insist or I'll leave!

Without putting on that fancy smile!

So you don't want to answer?

Can you do me a favour? Can we change the conversation?

Or I'll get up and leave! - As this conversation is...

Yes! Put it aside, apart.

So you choose the subject...

School!

Let's continue with it. Why do you wanna change it now?

I remember Paolo 5 years ago because his mother came to the town council

saying she wanted to get him into hospital because he was a psycho.

A kid! Can you imagine that?

We refused that and instead we offered a totally different approach.

Shallowly we could have said that the mother was the crazy one and not Paolo.

Yet it wasn't true because the mother had her own sustainability problems.

A woman on her own, working all day, an elderly person at home, no assistance.

The boy's got problems growing up without a father.

It wasn't possible to label her as the unstable one.

It was necessary to give the proper assistance to the mother.

That's what we did in the end. Now Paolo is well accepted by his mother.

For God sake, I don't want to impose my ideas on the other people.

So on the contrary I just give my personal opinion.

I'm not insisting about sending Paolo to school at any cost.

Because in the last three years here he always refused the school.

He wants a job.

And he wants friends.

We need to help him get a job

and assist him with the possibility of having friends.

Well, Angelo, that's your town.

Yes.

This town is uninhabited

Yes, it is.

You told us about a strong emigration. Was it the same with all your relatives?

Yes.

I told you. To France.

Why?

Those fake politicians talking about a plan for the rebirth of mountain life,

but then they just kick people's asses

and use the area for summer residences of those parasites and filthy animals

living in the dirtiest mud of limitless selfishness...

Coming here to insult people with their wealth.

What's the duty of the priest here?

The duty of the priest here is to be a servant

of the Christian Democrats. That's enough about defining him.

Angelo's first problem was the fact of being illegitimate.

He and his mother were living quite far from a normal populated town,

therefore having mobility problems.

All the mountain life problems and lack of external help to take care about the child

led to the decision to bring him to the orphanage.

Later, he was hospitalized in another institution.

From Fontanella you go to Montechiarugolo and then further to Cento.

And then from Cento to Novellara.

That's where he lives now.

Can you tell us about Angelo's childhood and how life was in this village?

Why Did Angelo have to move to a private institution?

The problem is that we are poor, right?

That's why we did like this until now.

Couldn't Angelo have stayed here to live with you all this time?

Somehow maybe yes...

He was a sickly boy, bad lungs...

He even passed out once.

Dead for an hour and a quarter.

When I was at the hospital I remember a few times when I almost died.

I guess my physical situation was not so good at that time...

Such...

When Angelo was born, was the village even poorer than now? Were you working?

Just few days, but then I got sick, bronchitis.

In 1956 I spent a month in the hospital and then later another month in 1961.

All the time under treatment for that bronchitis

which doesn't kill you, but you can't cure.

I had good and bad periods.

Then you have been to Milan.

I've been to Milan working for three months,

but I always met bad people. Unlucky all the time.

All your brothers had to emigrate?

Well, it's easy to explain...

Two of them saw work wasn't paying well, so they left for France.

Two, Massari Giuseppe, the younger and Massari Alfredo.

And Massari Giacomo, the third one,

used to take care of the animals, without really doing good...

Then he started to drink.

Drinking a lot and running away from one town to another...

going in and out of jail. But only for drinking problems.

Now it's already 20 or 21 years that he's in Colorno.

In the asylum you mean.

At his age it's still a risk for him.

He could make trouble. You need to control him.

Lately he's been declared dangerous

because of all those treatments and medicines which changed him.

He's in ruins.

Where are your brothers now?

It's five months that I have no clue about where he is.

He went back home last summer on 17th of September,

but then because of some mischief against a nun in Chiavari...

What did he do?

Who knows. He probably talked about politics if he was drunk.

Yes, he went in front of a church to talk about Russia

and the nun tried to stop him pushing him away.

He made a mistake.

Last questions...

You told us you had a strong affection for your grandfather.

One day they told you he died. Can you tell us about that day?

I was working in the garage, having a good time.

Then they called me on the phone informing me my grandfather was dead.

For me it was a real blow.

Because he was a bit like a father for you.

Yes, of course.

I had to get out immediately because I couldn't work any more.

I came back for the funeral, then...

How was it then here?

A lot of crying.

If we organize a dinner he's coming as well like everybody else.

A few times a year.

Did you discuss with Angelo about politics?

A lot...

About what precisely?

He stands up for his thoughts...

He needs tranquillity but the environment he was in didn't give him that.

Too much agitated.

You mean the Marxist-Leninist group?

You feel more critical towards them as well now...

I've been in one of those meetings to take a look and I end up talking with a guy

who was saying that the radical extra parliamentary left wing

is made of the same kind of people.

They bark a lot but when they need to bite they break their teeth.

The starting point was the hate toward everything and everybody

and this made me turn into a wild beast incapable of thinking.

Later things changed

and the hate was pointed against injustice,

no matter where from or who was associated with it.

He changed a lot.

You are happier?

He's a singer!

He is always singing and joking around.

You were talking about the hate which changed its target

since the class conflict is still on.

Who are the political opponents according to you?

Who should we fight in your opinion?

I can tell you in a few words,

the people we should fight against are the Vatican, landowners, overlords,

considering that a lot of them are even wearing a communist mask.

People like the P.C.I. is wearing a mask, as well as the pro-soviets.

Those are the fake communists.

I'm quite severe on this topic.

Actually now I'm supporting a bit the P.C.I.

because now they are the only ones who could shake up the working class.

We don't need divisions right now.

I heard that you want to become a member of the P.C.I.

I thought about it but it'll be a contradiction

considering my ideological beliefs.

Since you're always talking about Stalin, let's talk about Stalinism.

The process of de-stalinization has just found Stalin's faults.

Nothing has changed, same bureaucratic aspects,

same repression against intellectuals.

Some of those intellectuals deserve repression.

Don't come around with that theory, please!

I agree about the bureaucratic degeneration,

but the Stalinist politic line about the dictatorship of the working class

and the creation of socialism and the fight for it...

That's the right line,

you can't de-stalinize the dictatorship of the working class.

Mao made it good by simply fixing mistakes and without de-stalinization.

As Mao said, there were two swords. One was Lenin and the other one was Stalin!

They abandoned Stalin!

At the 20th Congress they shit all over Lenin as well!

Because they knew it!

They knew Lenin was bringing a totally different concept.

Yet now those jackals dared to give people their Party-card pretending to be Leninist.

They dumped the red flag of revolution into the mud.

Those people are not communists! They are traitors!

They're in power just because of some limits and mistakes made by Stalin.

Taking power they squashed the working class under an iron heel,

under a fascist dictatorship!

Those people have nothing to share with Stalin or Lenin.

Excuse me, before you were speaking about democratic centralism.

Yet with Stalin there was not centralism. It was a centralization.

Look! I don't care about intellectual conversations,

I follow my line and you can do what the fuck you want!

I follow the same Chinese line.

The Chinese said that Stalin at one point

failed in the application of democratic centralism. He did.

I agree with this.

That was not a small mistake. - Come on!

Marco was telling us something earlier.

One of the worst problems is solitude.

He's talking a lot about it.

Do you have this feeling as well? Do you want to talk about it?

It's not about avoiding talk of it. I feel as well the same problem.

But I feel it differently.

I saw solitude as a part of the structure of this society

Sometimes I feel like telling you my honest opinion.

Talking about politics, sometimes, it seems you're trying to escape your real problems.

For you it's a sort of runaway.

I disagree. My need to fight with the others is a personal need.

Marco, during your worst periods you even tried to kill yourself.

Did Montagnana province assist you into recovering?

Yes, they did help me.

Because I did some bad things.

I had a bad time and I took some trilene to kill myself.

I've been really sick and Montagnana helped me.

Were there any specific reasons for doing it?

Yes, there were.

On one side I was feeling a bit lonely outside.

I wasn't able to solve many problems in the proper way.

It was normal to think such bad things.

Here is written: real age, 6. Mind age, 3. IQ 0.55.

The child cannot benefit from a normal school.

Considering also the family situation we suggest to shelter him in an institution

for partially recoverable weak minds.

This thing about "partially recoverable" stands because

there is even nowadays the concept of being recoverable or not.

Yet we've already discussed this concept doesn't exist. Nothing is unrecoverable.

This concept has been outmoded at least for us.

You doing well?

Yes, I am. I work, I can handle myself.

I'm doing well at work.

Do you like your colleagues? - They're quite good.

Sometimes they joke, to make me laugh, because I'm really serious.

It's been hard with Marco for the first few months.

Marco was barely talking to anyone and had really strong depressive break-downs.

Really strong and frequent ones which led him to hide all day under the bed,

shouting non-stop.

Let's read this story. What's it about?

What is written here?

"labourer"

Something which regards you also.

What does it say here?

Paolo

is

a labourer.

but

wants

to

bec-

-come

Tell us about visiting him at theSacra Famiglia Institution in Cesano Bosconi.

OK. Have you seen where it's located?

5-6 kilometres away. I walked there!

Step by step.

I'll make it little by little!

When I arrived there they asked me: Who are you?

"Who are you?" They'd never met me.

Look, I'm Cattani Marco's mother.

He called the doctor, so I waited.

Then I was asked: "Didn't you die?"

Whatever, why was that?

I answered "Look! I'm alive, not dead!"

"They told me you died. Yet you really look like him so I guess you're the mother."

Of course! He's my son!

And we look really similar.

So he is convinced.

Finally I met him, with this bald head and so pale.

I said nothing right there at that moment. Then they put us in a changing room.

I asked him then: Are you fine here?

No, I'm not. They beat me, they cut my hair.

Why did they cut it?

Because he had lice! How come?

What to do?

So "aren't you OK?" I asked.

He told me "No, please get me out of here because I'm going mad".

and "There are loonies here! Such things there are!"

So I got things fixed with a letter.

And I got him out of there.

There was there one guy...

One of those real loonies, he asked me something....

He said: "Do they sell medicines in Parma?"

Why? Don't they sell them here also?

And then another one.

He came near me and looked at me.

He said "Don't worry about them, they're loonies!"

No, they are drunk!

Then "You know what, madam?" another one said.

"You're really beautiful!"

OK! OK! thank you, get off!

I saw another one.

He was making...

War!

I asked and they answered "It's a solitary war, since he's alone!"

Unbelievable!

He was breaking windows so they put the straight-jacket on him.

What a mess my son was living in!

You separated from your husband, right?

It's 25 years we've not seen each other.

I don't want to see him because he makes me sick!

You know that?

I don't wanna look at him, I hope he drops down dead.

I would go there to stab him, but I don't care.

I don't wanna hear about him!

What is your husband now doing?

He's living the life of a criminal!

How does he live?

How he lives? He collects cardboard from markets.

Selling them, buying food or going to eat at the priests'.

At priests'.

Do you know where he lives?

He lives in those big blocks near our daughter's area.

Do you ever meet him in the streets? - I don't ever wanna see him!

He's a waste!

What you said?

When he dies, I'll dress in red.

I have that dress!

Will you be really happy?

Yes, of course. Not even one tear!

Thanks for getting rid of such a villain.

Don't you think he just got unlucky in his life?

That's because he likes to drink!

You know what he does? He drinks two glasses and then he goes to sleep!

And he has no money!

A shepherd was taking care of my daughter.

Giovanna!

My husband took her out of there.

Do you know what she's doing now?

A prostitute!

20 years old, starting to be a prostitute!

What should I say?

Your daughter lives with your husband?

Yes, she does. And now she is in the racket.

Nobody can help her already!

Do you know that they put me in a house of correction?

In Bologna.

There is such a story, you could write a novel from it!

My childhood's been hard as well because of my mother who didn't love me.

I was ten and like orphan!

At ten I lived on the street!!

At ten!

Do you see?

Yet I was not like those bitches,

I never did that life, I could do that all day long.

Do you see?

Then she abandoned us for 2 years.

I got chilblains that time because the nuns didn't let me stay warm.

After that they put me in a house of correction!

Does Marco know about his sister?

He knows the life she's living.

She went to visit him once.

Marco had to tell her something and in the end she wanted to beat him!

So Marco saw his sister on the street.

She wanted to beat him!

The sister wanted to beat her brother!

If only another brother would have been there to kick her ass!

Marco is good person.

You should kick her ass for a sister like this!

That bitch!

I tried to tell her in a good manner. "You will regret it!" I said.

She answered me "I do what I want. You were a whore also, I can do it, too!"

Do you see?

One is a whore and the other as well.

There is nothing we can do, here.

And you think that it's your husband's fault, right?

Of course. She was living with him.

She started when she moved into his place?

That's when she started living a fine life.

He used to be drunk. He just needed a glass of wine for it.

They end up fighting, she beats him.

Was she beating him?

Yes, her father!

She beats him and then she can do what she wants.

Is your daughter with someone who protects her?

Yes.

Do you know him? - Yes.

It's a man called Mauro.

Once I was at their place and he wanted to beat her.

He wanted to beat her? - Yes, my daughter.

Why?

Why?

Because he's a pimp.

Is he from this area, Parma?

He's not. I don't know.

They just met once and since then he's living good squandering money from her job

How should I keep going?

Bearing all this...

With nothing I can do.

I would go there to smash his face.

Besides, right now...

you don't have any support...

Just a small pension. Because of my hand.

I damaged my hand because of work.

It was last year and I had Marco at home, alone.

See this? I get a pension because I damaged my hand.

Marco was home alone and I was hurt at 5.00 am.

I've got stitches 'cause I broke the phalanx.

How much do you get from the pension?

Do you want to know? Try to guess!

More or less!

340,000?

No way! In two months I get 12,000 Lire.

Isn't it bad?

Is that the only support you have?

Only that.

Every two months.

I had to sleep in hotels because I had no home.

Forced to live like the rich.

I've been a prostitute for two years.

Are you aware the State

is trying to help those youngsters who have these kind of problems?

OK, but they should help the mothers, too. Not only the youngsters!

It's OK to help youngsters and so on...

but they should help the mother as well! What the heck!

They do this for them and not for me? I would go to them and kick their asses!

For fuck sake I'm gonna beat them!

So you don't get any other support?

The Eca gives me 3.000 Lire.

It's every month.

Can I live with this?

I can live happily.

When have you ever been happy in your life?

Never.

Do you want to talk about your son?

Why?

Let's speak about Marco.

No...

Do you have a job at the moment?

No, I'm jobless.

You can't find a job?

I can't! I've got arthritis!

You're ill.

What were you doing before?

Collecting cardboxes.

Your wife said you're irresponsible.

No, my wife ... (?)

Why?

First she ran away to Milan, then came back to Parma

and then again she abandoned the family, staying with another man.

Your son was not feeling well in the Institution.

Couldn't you take care of him?

How?

What do you mean?

How could I do it alone?

When he was a baby...

Now you have an adult daughter who was living with you recently.

You mean Giovanna! - Wait a moment!

Let me go! Stop it!

We would like to film the children inside the Institution.

I don't think so. Have you already been here?

No, I've never been here. Is there a Mother Superior?

Yes. I could allow you inside for now, but you need proper permission...

We can wait as well.

She is quite busy actually...

OK. thanks.

So it's impossible.

Is there a reason? Can you tell us?

I don't know the real reason but I just know that...

Please don't film me.

No way?

Sorry, but we can't allow it.

We can't film with the camera?

No, nothing can be filmed.

Do you think it's a rule that works also for other Institutions?

Look! We have those orders because it's a private place.

Not inside nor outside and neither with the children.

First take. "Biondi" Institution.

My order is to let nobody enter.

Listen, In every Institution they don't want to let us in.

Sorry, I can't do it! I'm not allowed to, alright?

Are there some superior orders?

Superior orders told me this. I can't go against it.

There's no religious Institution where we can enter.

Not even to film some empty rooms?

Not even to film some empty rooms!

Why not?

That's the order they gave me and I abide by it.

Is there somebody in charge for this order? Who decides?

I can go and ask... Excuse me, what are you doing there?!

Nothing.

Yet you're doing something.

Yes, we're filming.

OK, so I can do nothing.

What about the Mother Superior?

Not even look at one room?

When are the children coming back?

You don't want to talk any more?

You've stopped talking?

Maybe we can call later on the phone.

Probably there were some institutions which were using improper methods.

Yet you need to know they were just blowing clouds of nonsense

with this national campaign they made up

about the beatings and so on...

For political purposes...

All regional or provincial or national movements have a political background.

Everything wants to be political with its own purpose.

Excuse me, I'm really explicit!

Have you heard about the Pagliuca case in Rome?

Of course! Some of those cases really happened!

Luckily, Marco ran away from the "Sacra Famiglia" Institution in Cesano Boscone.

"Sacra Famiglia"is a place where you enter aged six

and you can't get out even after dying.

Not really. We all know how it is in Cesano Boscone.

In other times they had all these handicapped people

who needed to be placed somewhere.

How long are you here away from Cesano Boscone?

Already 6 years.

Since my childhood I experienced places which I wouldn't consider nice.

Half of those places were treating people like dogs.

I ended up in this kind of Institution, treated like a dog and without a diploma.

I was working all day long in Milan. - What were you doing?

I was working with lights, assembling various parts.

And I was paid 400 Lire per week which is nothing for what I was doing!

I saw terrible things with my own eyes!

Yet I can't do a thing because I can't prove it.

Many Institutions treat guys like animals.

There's another problem which regards homosexuality...

Come on, give it up!!

There's something to say

about the homosexuality in those institutions.

It depends... In 5 years of my career I saw a couple of cases.

About eventual support I can say that if one is not a convinced Christian

he can't make a sacrifice for learning, caring or sharing,

or becoming oneself with those people..

What did you become now?

Before you were a Christian, but later what was your tumble? Tell us.

Well, the church is not like you understand it.

There's a lot of corruption in the church nowadays.

I can give an example.

The Vatican have billions but outside their doors they have tramps.

I don't believe in this church.

He's like the film in a movie, spinning non stop.

Well, when we deal with a communist, ...

I'll tell you I'm anti-communist...

When I meet a communist I can tell exactly what he's going to say.

About the Pope, the Spanish Inquisition and so on.

Looking for all the bad things he can find.

All this will to demilitarise and so on.

That's the method to create a communist person!

The will to create kindergarten and school full-time... Here it is!

To de-Christianize and to take people away from their own families.

So kids refuse to go back home and cry to be able to stay at school instead.

They can no more recognize their own mother.

That's their purpose!

First I would say...

A person who is Christian...

fighting for his political ideas...

into the Class Conflict... He could be near god, much more than somebody who...

Leave the class conflict apart! It doesn't involve Christian beliefs.

So you're still stuck to that movement called "Communion and Liberation".

No! "Comunione e Liberazione" deny the conflict.

They think to solve all the problems with the Mass.

With non-violence.

Anyway I'm also against a certain kind of violence.

You should be against all kinds of violence!

Yet not when they inflict violence on us!

One should react if they're inflicting violence on us!

There should be no violence on both parts. Love should reign among us, not violence!

Of course! Yet the ones who own the capital, the money,

they want to improve it and they can't say...

Obviously the middle-class always get ahead.

I've nothing to add to it.

They are prepared on purpose.

I can also be attacked because I'm a priest

and I'm part of this middle-class and those parasites.

No!

Those are the words they're using, they are taught like that!

Wait a second!

You are convinced of that, but the truth is

too many times the Church has been an instrument of power

and the most reactive-reactionary parts of it are still like this nowadays.

Don't speak bullshit.

That's no bullshit!

Yet Angelo is saying to not lump everything together!

About the fact the Church being involved with power... OK, that was temporary...

That's a fact! It is!

Yet the Church now has no powers as you said.

And those Institutions where intelligent guys are put in and become bumbling people?

That's true. I saw it with my own eyes!

I get angry over it! The middle class is the instrument which is supposed to help us!

They put their money on that!

Priests are not involved in all that as instruments.

He upholds that. It's a profession he doesn't like. He's been taught like that.

Priests help the middle class to get ahead.

That's not true.

In my opinion it's all wrong.

I was harmed! I've experienced those bad things since I was a kid.

We had our own problems at that time in my family.

My mother had to put me in an Institution,

which is a place where the middle-class put those guys to rot apart.

They go in as intelligent people but then they come out as stupid!

Without a diploma or any work training,

to be able to be a part of society!

I really struggled to stand up society and to find a job.

To develop some basic things... Nobody helped me.

Later only the county's office helped me to find a job and to make me feel good.

That's when my life started!

Before I would just stare at four walls and nothing else!

I've being treated badly.

Friends have being treated the same as me, too.

I'm talking about real facts.

That's what I experienced and remember.

Those are the fishy things I experienced, from which I learnt nothing!

Should we stand those congressmen?! - They are not congressmen.

Obviously we can't stand for that Cardinal Henríquez

who after the massacre happened in Chile congratulated Pinochet's junta.

We can't stand those kinds of people!

I want to fight those who harmed me.

Come on! How will you go about that?

The Church stands for 2,000 years even after all those who wanted to fight against it!

They all broke their horns and vanished, yet the Church stayed!

That will happen as long as it has already been.

Excuse me...

The problem is if those...

Wait a moment!

I'm talking about the hassle which is put into our soul against the Church!

Here it is...

The Church needs to have properties because it has a world of things to run.

They hold the diplomacy in all the world and so on...

Do you think they'll sell all those Vatican's treasures?

To sell out to the State?

A beautiful Institution doesn't exist. There's only one kind. A bad one.

Just because it has walls and fences and it's own logic.

Which is a logic of exclusion.

There is nothing to do.

In any ways it constricts you and it ends always in a loop.

Who is working in these Institutions?

We were all losers. I say 'we' because I was one of them.

We were people who didn't yet have a degree in medicine.

I couldn't find a place, except there. I was important there, I had a role.

And the patients suffered for that.

Other ones were all people who couldn't find a job outside.

Yet they could stay there.

That's how it really was.

They were losers who were trying to teach how to live to outcasts.

They said they just need to improve a few facilities.

In my opinion they should rather destroy those facilities, instead of improving them.

They need to be torn down!

That's why I'm deeply disappointed.

It seemed that the Institution was able to sustain itself,

but it fails because of the will of the owner who was not making enough money.

It has to be said without any fear!

In the facility where we were working everything was happening inside it.

The life was inside. The community's main events were Christmas,

the First Communion and football matches.

Once I've been in an Institution...

where the majority of boys were homosexual

yet not because of any illness.

They just liked to bully the younger ones.

I entered this specific Institution

and I saw all these dirty things.

It happened to me. I got mixed up in certain of their orgies.

I didn't actively participate, but I found my self involved in it

and it was disgusting!

I didn't experience this kind of thing.

We never ended up talking about these things.

There wasn't even time to do it because your time there was filled up.

We were playing football.

On Sunday we used to go for excursions.

Or sometimes I was an altar boy during Mass.

I spent my spare time well.

About prostitutes?

Actually, they... I mean there was this male nurse in Montagnana.

He was even married.

So it was risky for him to do it, to bring boys to those prostitutes.

He tried to be careful to let them have intercourse

and dealing for honest prices also.

He was balancing the situation, let's say.

So we went together a couple of times, actually I've already gone on my own,

just for the company.

I guess for them it's a quite interesting experience, being the first time...

Yet I've got this friend of mine....

who didn't enjoy at all because I guess he couldn't succeed.

It went wrong.

A few days later he was still living a sort of tragedy.

Yet they were having a negative experience

which ended right after. They'd get ahead and forget it.

Were you there when it was happening?

Yes, I was. I went a couple of times together with Mr Montebello.

Once near Lodi and the other time in Parma.

The first time has been very negative for me. I couldn't succeed.

I left with a heavy heart.

There were reasons

which didn't let me succeed.

I won't explain the reasons because they are really simple ones.

Yet the third time went really well. We drove to a place near Lodi.

So that time I succeeded.

Actually I don't know why I couldn't make it the second time.

Perhaps...

at that time I wasn't in the mood for doing it.

Do you think it has been a positive experience after all?

No, it isn't at all!

It doesn't make you grow up as a man.

To be mature I mean.

A girl is a serious thing, while a whore is something else.

Obviously you can't have a human touch with a whore.

You can with a girl.

You know, for a lost bitch nobody is crying!

Because you can just find another one who fits you!

That's the morality.

I heard you are a great thrower of knives plus various objects...

So you can't stay in school, right?

No, I can't stay still there for 5 hours.

Yet your friends can do it. Why can they in your opinion?

Because they are out of the ordinary!

I understand...

Actually they can't stand it, either. Even in other classes.

You want live your life on the loose.

Not my whole life! I've still got a whole life in front of me!

I mean now... - Now yes!

Are you happy with that, doing nothing?

No.

What do you want to do? - Go to work.

Why aren't you doing it? - 'cause of my age!

Do you think to solve all your problems by going to work?

No! Yet maybe just a little.

Why isn't your father living with you?

I don't know... because my mother drinks a lot!

She drinks and then... 'Sob'!

She goes in the street, roaming around...

She drinks a lot and many times went to the hospital.

Once she stayed there for a year and a half.

Do you feel sorry for the fact that your mother got married three times?

Do you mean for me?

Well, once is enough.

Maybe two, but not three!

Damn...

She's got a husband collection!

I don't get it....

Anyway I prefer to stay in Montagnana instead of home.

So why were you running away?

Well, I was older and I needed a bit of freedom.

The gates remain open there, right?

Damn it. They were saying "Don't go there! Stay here"

and so on and so on....

So sometimes I was tired of it and used to run away.

Three times. Once even when we were out at the seaside, do you remember?

And the psychologist? - She was also a devil!

What did she ask you?

I already told you about....

"Be a good boy" and so on....

One time, two times, then three and four and five!

The sixth time I had enough and I locked her inside.

I threw away the key and the janitors couldn't find it.

Then I retrieved it and threw it out of the window!

Is she just telling you to be a good boy?

Well she was also telling me to study saying "It will help you.

Study, it'll be good for you!"

By dint of studying I could just lose weight!

I don't get it....

She was telling you just that? - Yes!

"Behave!"

Was she telling also "Behave at home as well!"?

Yes!

She was saying "Come and have lunch with me" to cosy up to me.

"No!"

"Please"

"No!"

"Please"

"No!"

Then I would slam the door in her face.

She could go on asking until the day after tomorrow!

I don't like people who repeat things.

Do you think she is doing it....?

She's doing it also to help me.

Yet she doesn't understand you.

No. I don't understand her!

It's the same thing...

I had fun!

I was painting with toothpaste on women's faces.

Then I was put their hand in a basin full of water while they were sleeping

and they were pissing the bed! Try it!

Really?

Sure! You put the hand in the water and you pee in bed!

Who did you do it to?

To Danila, do you remember? She was peeing so much!

That's crazy!

You can just put your hand in the water and that's it.

Yet only for peeing!

That's incredible!

I've never heard anything like that in my life!

You've got an arsenal of mischief!

Then we were doing that "bag" prank!

We cut just a little bit of the sheet,

then when you go to bed you rip it, making a huge hole!

You mean you were setting it like that...?

No, wait! Look, I'll explain it to you!

For example, when you go to bed...

like that, you get in...

Yet we had a method. By doing like that...

We folded it and then he ripped it by getting in with no clue!

There was this woman in my city, kind of fancy and smug...

You know what happened?

They took a ... turd...

They packed it nicely with a note in which was written words from the turd itself

as if it was talking for real.

It said "I was feeling lonely for long time,

but finally I found my soul mate. Together we'll be happy".

That was in my town!

"Get out!"

What did you do then?

I stayed.

"Get out!"

I stayed, so she decided to go out.

She went to call the principal I guess...

The principal gave me some chocolate.

You decided to embrace this experience of having at home

for one year six guys classified as 'irrecoverable'.

First we thought to let them find themselves in a familiar environment.

At home we had normal furniture

which didn't recall Institution images.

Even alcohol was at hand but they never made use of it.

In my opinion kids make use of those things when they are hidden from them.

We treated them like they were part of the family.

We avoided keeping all those kinds of Institution clothes.

In the beginning

we were going out all together to let them know the city.

They knew nothing at all...

Nothing! They didn't know how to wash themselves.

Actually things were getting better later in Montagnana.

Yet they couldn't even stay dressed

and eating with their hands like animals.

They were afraid of walking in the street because of the cars,

which they'd just seen from the windows of the Institution. They were scared.

They didn't know anything about money at all.

Little by little they got acquainted with the city,

taking the bus, going to cinema by themselves and spending money.

If we were going to cinema we wanted to let them buy their own ticket.

At home we had a small box with their money,

to teach them about it.

Already from the first night those guys changed, they used to be always agitated,

jumping around and fighting each other. Yet not at home!

They were quiet, like normal boys from the very first day.

One of themsaw the brand-new and nice furniture

and said "Before sitting I'm should put on my best clothes!"

Looking at each other they were touching a cabinet saying

"Do you have clean hands? Don't dirty it!"

There was one of them, Giorgio Alfieri,

who as soon as his clothes got a stain or in bad shape

was asking to immediately changes his clothes.

In the Institution they used to live naked

in muck and filth,

almost malnourished and tied up.

One of them, Francesco,

had blisters in his heels

because he used to be tied up on the chair.

He couldn't wear shoes so we had him operated on,

otherwise he wouldn't even have been able to walk properly.

For years, they used to tie him up.

Henceforth, they inherited everything from that Institution.

Classified as 'irrecoverable' because placed in the chronic ward.

Together with 90 year olds!

Since their childhood! They inherited everything from there!

The Institution shaped their violence.

Guglielmo was called 'the beater' of Sospiro.

If orderlies wanted to beat a patient

they used to ask Guglielmo to not get their hands dirty.

He used to rush to do it, he really was 'the beater'.

Yet with us he has never been violent.

When we decided to start this new family

we wanted to get elements and facts to prove those boys could change

and saying that society is wrong!

It's a mistake which shouldn't exist!

We've got evidence about how these boys were before and how they are now!

We should understand that and not leave these as empty words!

Bertozzi is coming? Who is he?

Was he working with you at the factory?

Together with Teresa.

You were working with him, right?

Yes.

Francesco, how is your father?

He is good, yet I should write to him...

actually he writes to me, I don't need to do it....

we keep a correspondence with my family.

My mother died three months ago.

I hoped... didn't see her again.

When Alfieri started to work with this semi-automatic machine

where you need to coordinate yourself by putting sheet metal

and pressing a pedal with your foot to cut it,

he was doing it perfectly without any problems.

Yet the employer didn't care about it

and preferred to donate money as charity instead of keeping him at work.

So when we saw the employer refusing to continue with him

we understood that it was necessary to involve the other workers,

who are our only power in the factory.

So we told them their collaboration was indispensable if we want to help these boys.

Yet the employer was not permitting them to do it!

When they tried to help he told them:

"Mind your own work and do it! If he can't work let them come to take him away!"

Employer was really preventing the workers from helping our boys!

That's how a private factory was!

Class conflict has always been hard!

It's also never thoroughly won!

It consists of small battles which you need to fight and win!

Little by little, day by day, working on it!

The discharge of these boys is an occasion to act on this topic

and that's what we are trying to do!

Long live the labourers of the workshop!

These are card cases for buses.

How old are you? - 25.

How long is it that you've been working here.

It's long time.

Three months... No, three years!

Do you like it? - Yes, I do!

Do you get on with colleagues? - Yes!

Do you prefer to stay here or at home? - Here!

I prefer here. It's work!

It all started because the president of the firm got interested in it.

He asked the union representative if it was possible to start an experiment

about putting these boys to work with us.

We agreed about making it happen

and then we realized that

we went even further than an experiment as it's already three years they are here!

They mean a lot to us because when they first came in

some of them where not even able to stay close to the workers.

Later they acquainted themselves and became friends.

Before it we knew nothing about all those problems.

How could we know about it?

They were confined in Institutions or at home.

That's the problem for their integration into society!

They were limited to deal only with families and certain persons,

so it was impossible for us to know these problems existed!

There are three of them. Two are misfits,

while the other one is mongoloid.

Those two easily fitted in since they had less 'difficulties', let's say...

For the mongoloid it's been harder since he had his own habits and way of doing things.

Yet...

the mongoloid had a big plus: affection!

They have a strong affection for people who get closer to them.

Like Fabio. Nobody messes with him!

The mongoloid learned to do this job properly like we do.

Yet he needed sometimes to stop, to move around, to go to the toilet...

Little by little he got acquainted...

When they came the first time

everyone of them was in awe

but later they got along with us and became friendly.

We noticed they need their time

for learning how to work full time.

We wanted to understand how to involve them

and make their life better.

And we did it. It's improving day by day.

The positive thing is that these guys are happy to stay here!

When we need to move their shift it's a tragedy!

It's a tragedy for them of course.

And we feel sorry as well since they are part of our team.

We also end up giving to him and Luigi their own badge

to swipe when they start.

For them it's incredible!

They never forget to do it and that's a way to make them feel equal.

Everybody made progress, even the most serious?

Everybody!

Yet you need to know we deal here with the most problematic ones.

They are the most 'irrecoverable'.

Even if the work wouldn't help we are recovering them,

from an intellectual point of view.

We can notice it everyday. It's a convenient and normal method.

Actually we discovered that sort of sense of humanity

which previously we were maybe losing.

These boys are really friends with each other. They love one another.

Seeing this love among them

made us rediscovering this feeling.

They taught us something, too.

Is it you who delete the Sundays from the calendar?

No, it was me! I deleted Saturdays and Sundays!

You'd like to stay here all the time? - Yes, all the time!

Living here you mean?

Yes, I want to stay here forever together with all the labourers and friends!

With all of them, like Stefano and the others!

For real, all the time here!

That's it!

Stefano, what's the last grade you completed?

5th grade of elementary school. It went fine.

Why did you quit? - Because I don't like studying.

Are you here learning things thanks to the colleagues?

Yes.

Do you like being a mechanic?

Yes, a lot.

I should have prepared a better speech.

In three years they never had an accident here.

Never! Not even a scratch!

As you can see there's a lot of work pits around here.

However, they never got injured or fell into these holes.

From the first day we taught them where danger is and they learned it immediately.

They can avoid it.

That desire to delete Saturdays and Sundays is very meaningful.

He deleted holidays from the beginning, a long time ago.

He considers work time as his life, while holidays were a waste of time for him.

Maybe that's where his alienation problem comes from.

Some of them would like to read, but they can't.

I don't know if it's because of the school they attended

or it's their mentality which prevents them from learning to read and write.

Yet I think they could be included in a normal school with other boys

who should get to know them

and once adults will not have that distance which we experienced in the beginning.

They need to learn how to help them and not to make fun of them,

so that when they grow up they will not see them as somebody to mock.

They'll not make fun of them like kids used to do.

My last question...

Here they feel good with all of you

but not when they are outside...

They feel lonely. - Well, it could be.

Especially for those who don't have a normal family to go to after work.

They probably feel lonesome when they don't work here,

away from a human voice, from the people who talk with them.

Even ordinary people who live alone with no family

could alienate themselves making them lonely.

And they also prefer work for having company.

There's something wrong.

That's a widespread situation which involves not only our boys here.

Costanzo...

...Cesarotti...

How long have you been working here?

Three years.

I have got...

a mother

and a brother?

My gosh!

I've got my mother...

Gianpaola, Carla and my sister-in-law Anna.

My father died.

My father's dead

and my grandfather as well, poor Pino.

They are both at the cemetery not far from here.

Even if they don't learn to work properly, at least they learned to stay among people.

Like that boy who, while he was focused on work,

couldn't stand someone coming nearby and touching him. He was trembling, shouting.

Yet look at him him now! Taking his coffee with no problems.

Something changed in his mind. He's more friendly than before.

When you show them sensibility then they can feel it!

They feel relaxed.

Basically,

we can all stand this world because human being lives collectively.

If we isolate ourselves we would die or become some certain kind of animal.

Since it's the collectivity which keeps us alive and lets us get ahead

they also need it. They can't renounce it.

I would praise you because you have helped them

even more than all those doctors, teachers or psychotherapists.

It's not up to us to state it, but we really saw such improvements!

Not like in Institutions or in the family.

The only thing I can assert is that when these boys came out from Institutions

they really couldn't stand strangers.

Here they learned to do it!

Listen, workers always struggle to live.

Everybody has his own big problems.

Some more, some less...

We should question all those private and clerical institutions,

like those nuns who didn't let us in to film.

We should look into this.

Yes, we should. Indeed, thanks to the new independent conduct

of the labourer's movement

those institutions are changing,

crumbling and shutting down.

This message of freedom touched even the most enclosed institutions.

The understanding of the condition of those many outcasts

doesn't touch only our consciousness. It also undermines these institutions.

I know that's a difficult battle!

Since you can't shut down institutions and asylums

with deliberation, for God's sake!

You can't generalise.

Nothing is impossible!

We can transform or change or destroy asylums!

You should know Parma has its own tradition.

It was the only city which defeats fascism

with the famous barricades made by Guido Piceli, leader of Arditi Del Popolo.

Parma had the first peasants' battles, known as '8 hours',

where many of them have been killed by the police.

That was at the beginning of the century,

then later we had also the partisan fight where Parma earned the golden medal.

Further more

Parma has sacrificed many labourers,

killed in the city's squares, against the reactionary Scelba.

Yet this battle can be won in other cities or regions as well.

That's the so called revolutionary fight.

If we fight here in Emilia it's not because it's a red region

and not because we have such a combative heritage.

It's just something which should be developed in the whole country.

We have shut down those orphanages

and released kids from institutions for handicapped people.

We released all those people who were interned in asylums for 30 or 50 years.

We believe we gave a contribution for a curative resolution

of managing those people's destiny together with the working class

in opposition of the mass intervention by psychoanalysis.

We're serving society's model which we want to create

together also with the left wing political party,

local and regional authorities, and hopefully other regions.

We're heading for even wider questions like preventive medicine for workers.

We want to find together with workers

the causes of illness in the factory and fight against them,

like exploitation, assembly lines, a harmful environment.

That's such a collective administration of health

which interweaves with our work in this field.

We think to change society by doing this!

Nowadays the working class needs to acknowledge

these things to strengthen the political fight.

They need to learn about everything!

Not only about their exploitation's conditions,

but every isolating aspect which concerns them and affects them.

That's our policy of solidarity. Something which really operates

and doesn't only deal with conferences and rallies.

I'm referring to that solidarity which exists among villagers and peasants,

a solidarity which is almost invisible.

That's the latest civilization!

It's nothing new!

We revalue a cultural aspect which others want to destroy.

I'll tell you what I think about curing and healing this mass phenomenon,

concerning those people which are not the mentally ill.

It's about making them aware of their duty as a class.

They have to take over all these things

together with institutions, labourer's unions

which need to worry about the liberation of those people.

It can't be limited just to a technical intervention

from Institutions, which are also important to do it.

Nowadays, our doctors from mental hospitals in Parma,

or Trieste or Perugia or in a few more cities,

are those "technicians" who have the trust of labourers and their unions.

the working class wants its own "technicians" and services and reforms!

That's why they need to participate and show solidarity!

Such is our option!

Mr Martinelli, you were telling us about the time you entered that asylum...

That was in 1962.

It was my first experience with asylums, my very first night.

I remember that at about 10 pm

there was this long-standing patient

who was shouting for help to the orderly from his room.

There were three orderlies by the door talking about sport

or their own damn business.

As if that patient had no voice,

yet I could hear him clearly from that same distance of orderlies.

I waited for a while, actually an hour!

Then I angrily stood up and told them:

"Don't you hear him calling?

"You wear this working suit which represents sacrifice since it's white...

"even without that red or green cross.

"Don't you hear the patient calling you? Don't you have a heart? Who hired you?"

They just said "Get lost!".

I could do nothing and I went back to my bed.

That night the patient had a fever of 40!

I thought it was enough for that night,

yet at midnight I felt, during my sleep,

they were carrying me with the bed to the corridor.

I woke up and said "Where am I?"

They distracted me by calling me from several directions

and suddenly I felt a sheet wrapping my head

and been beaten up!

So hard that I can't explain it!

Especially on the liver, leaving me breathless

to not let me shout for help, I couldn't!

I felt like the world falling apart on me. And for what?

For telling an orderly to help a patient who was really in need?

That's what happened when you were trying to help another patient!

Later in the morning the doctor stated that I was much too agitated...!

and that I was violently squirming in the bed!

They were cowardly killers! I've been beaten black and blue and said nothing!

Of course, I'm not the first!

I've witnessed many similar cases which I'd like to uncover!

I would do if I'd be sure they'll pay for the bad they've done!

How many people did they kill there? Who knows!?

I'm sure more than one! More than 10! More than 20 died in that way!

I survived because those things stopped later!

Thanks to Mr Tommasini who intervened,

these bad things ceased to exist!

Yet, I had to say that's not true...

That noise of the keys locking those 50 years old doors

is like an obsession in the mind of patients,

to be locked up inside, yet outside of civilisation!

If a lot has been changed, I think much more should still be done.

I suggest that a patients' representative should be part of a Hospital's Commission.

Like a sort of union of in-patients.

If you ask where to get them, don't worry because even if

we are mentally ill we're ready to throw down the gauntlet!

We are more intelligent than you all!

The hospital of Colorno must disappear from the city of Parma!

We will open new small clinics, one for each grade of illness!

Yet first of all Colorno must disappear!

Because it's an indelible sore for our body and blood!

Very bad! Nobody replied!

Everybody should fart!

Come on!

Let's do it!

"One night I went to the theatre"

"It was stuffed as hell"

"We were dancing"

"A new tango"

"What a pleasure, how nice!"

Do you see? If the audience would participate it could be a great success!

OK. That's it.

"...with mistrust and barriers. What a nice world we had."

"Leaving such a trace. The Hiroshima bomb."

"Yet, with faith, with justice, with love..."

"an ancient discrepancy will be eventually fixed"

"That's our desire and will."

"Ban war from society."

"Long live our ideal!"

"Long live a peaceful world and our work!"

"Forever without feeling bad..."

"if together we will always act!"

"Walking down the street with a red flower in our buttonhole..."

"we'll happily sing the anthem of the labourers!"

Look, Mr Martinelli...

How do you spend the time here?

Well, I'll tell you step by step the time here.

At 6 o'clock you need to wake up because of cleaning the rooms.

So unless he's a sleepyhead who could sleep even with the light on.

the patient must wake up at that time.

Then you just wait there wandering around for a hour and a half.

Actually at 6.30 we occasionally go to the barbershop,

which is like a racing challenge.

We need to arrive early in the morning

because sometimes one barber ends up having 10 patients to shave.

An overlap of patients who just want to get rid of this dreadful cross

which is the beard.

Then one hour to wait until 7.30,

during which you have to stay by the walls

because orderlies are cleaning floors. Otherwise in bed.

That's why we usually go back to bed.

At 7.30 finally there's breakfast, without sugar.

Without sugar not because of rationing, but because we always did it like that.

Maybe because they say sugar is bad for your body, I don't know...

We get coffee without any sugar at all!

So that's another race for the coffee, which actually nobody drinks since its...

Almost everybody prefers coffee from the bar.

That's why they wait until 8.15.

So at that time we go out for a coffee.

That's what I usually did when I lived in the city.

Drinking coffee and getting ahead until noon.

Here we are not so busy so it's enough to get ahead until 13.30.

So then the problem is to fill up the time from 8.30 until 11.30.

That's the problem.

There's no TV.

If you can play cards you do it non stop like a robot.

Or you can lie in bed in the hope of sleeping.

Because while sleeping we can forget many things,

especially the most terrible ones which we have the right to forget.

When we sleep we rest and relax

in order to deal better with our own problems

and hoping for a better tomorrow.

During the first year in Colorno I never spoke out.

I did what the old ones where telling me to do.

Indeed, for an year and a half I was considered like a model orderly.

Congratulating me and telling Mr Tommasini

"What a good boy we've got here!"

That was until the conference in Parma where

I "broke free" in front of all doctors and orderlies' heads,

plus director Basaglia and the assessor Tommasini

who was the city administration's representative.

That time I spoke out about the whole internal condition in Colorno Hospital.

Some doctors left the room because

I was calling name by name the causes of that condition

and explaining the real situation inside the facility,

which was impossible to hide at that point.

One needs to enter and see what's inside the asylum and be a man!

I saw there all those similar hard things I went through in my life,

my misfortunes and disgraces and misadventures of my past,

which I related to what was happening to them.

I also didn't have any support, living in a poor family,

with the death of my father in that Southern Italy of poverty.

We were crawling with lice totally abandoned by the local authorities.

Once they even refused to give us food because of an expired document.

My mother was crying in front of her six sons.

How could I have survived in that case. I would have turned into a basket case?

That's why I saw myself in all the patients' faces

and felt affection for them.

I stayed there until that conference

after which I've been ignored by all my colleagues.

In my opinion the defence of the patient was essential and crucial,

as he's a human being who needs to be defended

to the point of threatening to beat an orderly when he wanted to harm a patient.

We want to know in a few words from you,

even using examples,

what was the difference between the managing of Prof. Tommasi

and the one of Tommasini after the student protest of 68?

We really took the plunge,

which brought a total change in the life of the hospital.

I remember that in 1963

we worked here for a firm

which collaborated with the administration of that time.

They were calling it Ave because it was the name of the building of that firm.

Do you want to know how much they paid us to tighten electrical things?

What do they call them? Lampshades...

They were paying us 100 Lire per day.

I remember Mario Tommasini entering with the doctor in my room

and asking me while I was tied up in bed

"What do you think of Ave?"

I answered "What a low salary exists in the world!"

"They pay 100 Lire per day! How can it be?"

Then I said "What about the meals? We don't eat good!"

"I'm here starving, tied up in bed even during summertime with diarrhoea.

I call them for cleaning and nobody comes!"

Then he extended his hand to me and I noticed an almost crying glance.

Right there we were two comrades.

One in misery while the other one just a bit out of misery, let's say.

Yet, we met on the same frontline

to fight that cruelty the world adopted for those asylums.

Let's face it!

Take myself, a loony, yes Sir! What's the price you pay for being a loony?

I lost my family, my sons.

What is left for me? Tommasini!

It sounds like a fairytale... Who can give me back my smile?

Who gives me hope? Tommasini.

Yet he's working too much, too.

Like me. I've got exhausted.

My ways are what they were. I'm not even good at singing.

When one has this background he is marked.

It's an illusion to think that it's easy to emerge from it. It's not, dear people!

It's hard wherever you go. Either to reunite with family or to go to work!

In the end, I can say that presently even in Colorno hospital you can live well!

Yet, how?

Living as a militant!

Especially being part of the hospital committee.

It's not fair that only orderlies and doctors have to find a solution for our problems,

neither only factory's presidents and personnel managers...

As soon as they don't really care about the patients,

we need to create a patient's union made by the ones who can really speak out loud.

That's a bit of a problem...

There's me!

I've always been for fighting.

We must go to the director to say "Wait a moment! From now you'll go on with us! ..."

"We noticed that it's a long time that just mind your own business and not ours!

Forgetting that you all have a job because of us!"

If they discuss patient's problems we need to see if we agree with them.

If they really want this place to be such an open and welcoming kind of hospital

let's start discussing few things. For example, the locked doors.

We disagree, dear people!

How is your life after leaving the hospital of Colorno?

Very good.

I feel very good outside.

How good is it? - More beautiful!

It's much better to live outside than in that place. I feel better.

How many years did you spend in the Colorno asylum?

35 years.

How did you feel the first day you came out after 35 years?

I looked out of the window and I saw finally a different thing...

I feel much better out of that place.

Life was different there.

Where?

At the mental hospital of Colorno.

Let's say that I didn't like it there very much...

all the time confined...

If you were doing something bad an orderly would tie you up and beat you.

Some patients were tied up for so long that they got crooked arms.

They damaged them...

They all turned into cripples by having their arms and hands tied up.

Like that...

How did they do it? - Strapped, like that....

How? What were they using?

Well, sometimes strapped like that,

or like that

blocking your arms with the straitjacket.

Now you live independently?

Yes, happily together.

You feel good in this neighbourhood?

Yes.

Everybody respects and likes me.

Could you tell us how you spend the time each day?

Well, I do housework, like cooking, cleaning

and when I'm done I go out to take a walk in the city.

In July sometimes I go for a holiday trip...

Were they actually curing you at that asylum?

They gave me pills, tablets.

Yet now you don't use them. - No, I don't.

You mean that those pills had no effects?

No, pills were just dumbing me down for a while.

How long did you remained strapped? - For 5 years, day and night.

Day and night.

When I was born they put me in the Parma orphanage, which now is closed.

Then I can't really remember until six because I was too young,

later they put me in the hands of nuns until 19,

in the Santa Maria Institution of Villa Vogadro-Vighefio in Parma.

They were telling me that I was a puppy

because I was always sleepy and not making the sign of the cross.

Then I picked that ranting-like from all those other patients. I became like them.

Were they also beating you?

Yes, they were beating you with canes if you didn't wake up to go to Mass.

Why did they send you to the Institution and asylum?

I think I was examined by Dr. Rosselli at the neuropsychiatric department.

I stayed there 15 days, later they sent me to the asylum because of a lack of beds.

The doctor there actually told me the nuns should have been hospitalized and not me.

In fact the nuns left immediately in the presence of the doctors.

Moreover I was not an orphan as nuns were claiming. It wasn't true!

After that examination I ended up in the "ward of the quiet ones",

but later they put me in the "agitated" ward where Doc. Urbani was.

It was the ward of the filthy ones.

Women strapped and foaming at the mouth, sleeping on the floor and eating like that...

Like they showed in Trieste.

Poor women... I've seen it all. One friend of mine, Gazola,

was always strapped and died under the pressure of the straitjacket.

Staying all day long in those small rooms in the "agitated" ward.

I've been strapped with the straitjacket and the "scuffia"

I can really tell that, it's the truth.

Since I was fighting back later they put the "scuffia" on me.

What's this "scuffia"?

It's a sheet stained with urine.

Tightened around the head

to leave you breathless, in addition to the straitjacket.

I'm not sure how to do it.

Like that. To leave you breathless. I even got a heart murmur.

Just like that.

To not let me breath.

So then the patient was strapped and beaten up?

He was already strapped with a six belts straitjacket.

If you fought back, spitting at the orderlies, they also put the "scuffia" on you.

To keep them calm and take revenge.

Doctors agreed with that after the orderlies' reports.

Clelia, since you're a beautiful woman

don't you think about getting married and having a family?

Actually I have quite a lot of admirers.

I always had...

So it's long time that you feel better,

yet you've nowhere to go.

Even like this I don't feel able to leave and face life right now.

It's something I can't do.

Yet it's a long time you've been fine...

Yes, I can't lie about it. It's a long time...

And I always tried to keep myself busy in the asylum without sitting on my hands,

but now I'm quite old and can't face things like I did when I was 20 years younger.

Years roll by, you know...

Madame, you are 72 now so you don't need to think about working to live

because when one is at that age one needs to rest.

What if you could have a small apartment and your own pension for living?

I mean, it's your decision to do it or not...

anyway if you could have your furnished apartment and all you need to live

would you like to try?

No, I can't. I told them immediately.

I'm honest about it. I'm not pretending and not afraid to say no.

I told them immediately.

How could I stand having a house out there?

I would find myself alone and lost!

You also could be released right now

Well, I don't think so...

You don't want to either.

I tried, of course. I've been released 4-5 times.

For 10-20 days, but then I always came back.

Why?

I can't sleep because I can't stand life outside.

I've got used to living here by now. It'll be 11 years on the 17th of August!

Actually it's not about getting used it,

yet it's because I don't care any more about that life outside!

As I know you have been a partisan who fought in the war...

Yes! Yet, come on! I only did it for 3 months!

Not like some others who did it for more than a year!

I did my best!

Wouldn't you like to leave this place?

I don't feel like it any more.

I fighting here, inside. I'm a communist and I want to die as a communist!

So basically that's the asylum's loop.

Since he said he's got used to living here by now.

That's the evil part of Institutions!

That's the worst illness produced by asylums!

It's an illness which destroys the life of those people who then are afraid to leave.

When you talk about integration

it's about helping Mr Bonzanini, Dall'Orto,

Martinelli and the lady to take their first steps outside.

By taking them out for a walk, a trip or to go to the cinema.

Once we brought him to his native town to have a talk with the townsfolk.

That's how they can rediscover an interest in life, step by step.

They can cure the asylum's illness and heal themselves.

Take Mr. Dall'Orto, for example, who said he doesn't want to go out.

After such an exciting event of yours coming here to interview and motivate them

Dall'Orto in the end said that

if he could have a house and a pension he would leave this place.

"We see a preamble of a better future"

"A brighter future for poor people"

"That's our will and our poverty"

"That's how happy we are about our honesty"

"Walking down the street with a red flower in our buttonhole"

"We will happily sing the anthem of labourers!"

"Come on, men and women comrades!"

"that's our prayer"

"high as the sun of the future!"

Go on, Mario!

I want you to take you notice

that we are all proudly the scholars of Mr. Martinelli!

You are the one who teach us all these things!

We wish to thank all people who make this film happen,

especially the city of Parma and the region of Emilia-Romagna.