"Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook" is an unforgettable documentary about survivors and their families of the notorious Staten Island institution for children and adults with developmental disabilities. Exposed in 1972 by TV reporter Geraldo Rivera, the "snake pit" horrors of Willowbrook State School led to a public outcry and a successful movement toward community-based care of the mentally retarded.
Producer Danny Fisher and director Jack Fisher concentrate on a half-dozen Willowbrook cases, including stirring visits with several former residents who have had positive post-Willowbrook lives. But it's the regrets and painful memories of the family members that support one interviewee's belief that for many the fallout from Willowbrook is a "perpetual mourning."
Narrator Danny Aiello provides the overview of the sorry facts about Willowbrook, while Rivera's original award-winning ABC series and other archival footage and photographs show glimpses of the horrid conditions in which "residents" by the hundreds were ill-treated and managed like "dogs in a kennel."
Rivera, as do several others in the film, sheds a few tears in remembering his part in ending the nightmare, but the chief virtue of "Unforgotten" is the participation of those who lived through it. Bernard Carabello, hard to-understand at first, because of his cerebral palsy, Bernard Carabello was misdiagnosed and spent 18 years at what he now calls a "concentration camp."
While the perceptive and articulate Carabello makes a huge impression, the families of two other Willowbrook veterans are frank and emotional in recounting sibling and parental mistakes. The brothers Fisher (the documentary "A Generation Apart" and the 1989 feature "Torn Apart") capture many moments of emotional catharsis and make a passionate plea for the understanding of the disabled, people Carabello says are the same as the rest of us but just "need more attention."
UNFORGOTTEN: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
AFTER WILLOWBROOK
Castle Hill
A City Lights International presentation
in association with HeartShare
Director Jack Fisher
Producer Danny Fisher
Executive producer Katie Meskell
Writer Stuart Warmflash
Cinematographers Eric Lau, Mark Kroll, Allan McPheely, Richard Mauro
Editors Constantine Limperis,
Matthew Mallinson, Shelly Toscano
Music Hayes Greenfield
Narrator Danny Aiello
Color/stereo
Running time -- 57 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Producer Danny Fisher and director Jack Fisher concentrate on a half-dozen Willowbrook cases, including stirring visits with several former residents who have had positive post-Willowbrook lives. But it's the regrets and painful memories of the family members that support one interviewee's belief that for many the fallout from Willowbrook is a "perpetual mourning."
Narrator Danny Aiello provides the overview of the sorry facts about Willowbrook, while Rivera's original award-winning ABC series and other archival footage and photographs show glimpses of the horrid conditions in which "residents" by the hundreds were ill-treated and managed like "dogs in a kennel."
Rivera, as do several others in the film, sheds a few tears in remembering his part in ending the nightmare, but the chief virtue of "Unforgotten" is the participation of those who lived through it. Bernard Carabello, hard to-understand at first, because of his cerebral palsy, Bernard Carabello was misdiagnosed and spent 18 years at what he now calls a "concentration camp."
While the perceptive and articulate Carabello makes a huge impression, the families of two other Willowbrook veterans are frank and emotional in recounting sibling and parental mistakes. The brothers Fisher (the documentary "A Generation Apart" and the 1989 feature "Torn Apart") capture many moments of emotional catharsis and make a passionate plea for the understanding of the disabled, people Carabello says are the same as the rest of us but just "need more attention."
UNFORGOTTEN: TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
AFTER WILLOWBROOK
Castle Hill
A City Lights International presentation
in association with HeartShare
Director Jack Fisher
Producer Danny Fisher
Executive producer Katie Meskell
Writer Stuart Warmflash
Cinematographers Eric Lau, Mark Kroll, Allan McPheely, Richard Mauro
Editors Constantine Limperis,
Matthew Mallinson, Shelly Toscano
Music Hayes Greenfield
Narrator Danny Aiello
Color/stereo
Running time -- 57 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 11/18/1996
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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