Kino Basaglia

Basaglia on screen: film, madness, and freedom.

Kino Basaglia is part of the official programme of the European Capital of Culture 2025 Nova Gorica - Gorizia. In collaboration with the publishing house /*cf., the screening will be followed by a discussion titled "Up Close, No One Is Normal" on the phenomenon of Franco Basaglia. The discussion will feature the curator of Kino Basaglia, Mila Lazić, along with two renowned experts in the field of anti-psychiatry and in Basaglia’s life and work, Vito Flaker and Juš Škraban.

 

Up Close, No One Is Normal I

23 May 2025 at 18:00

 

Abel Gardens

At a time when heated debates are taking place about the abolition of psychiatric institutions and new ways of treating patients, Sergio Zavoli travels to Gorizia to meet the director of the psychiatric hospital, Franco Basaglia, and learn about his revolutionary, innovative methods. Ten years later, on 13 May 1978, Law 180 was passed, mandating the definitive closure of psychiatric hospitals and the abolition of inhumane therapeutic methods.

Are the Poor Mad?

The psychiatric hospital Santa Maria della Pietà in Rome is just one example of the dramatic situation faced by patients locked away in psychiatric institutions in Italy. The institution serves more as a place to remove individuals deemed unfit for life in a consumerist, profit-driven society.

Let the Mad Be Free

In Colorno near Parma, Franco Basaglia is the director of the psychiatric hospital. He is committed to restoring dignity to the patients. He abolished electroshock therapy and opened the hospital wards. Patients can now move freely within and outside the building, communicate with the outside world, and even find suitable employment. Basaglia also talks about a case of parricide committed by a former patient.

Unleashed

Fabio Spada is a seven-year-old boy from the Roman suburb of San Basilio, considered maladjusted at school. A lonely and powerless child, infinitely creative, he finds no understanding in society. Fabio seems to harbor no illusions about a better tomorrow: he does not believe in justice and wants to defend himself from reality in his own way.

 

Up Close, No One Is Normal II

23 May 2025 at 21:00

 

The Maimed Tree

A time of introducing new psychiatric methods: the inhabitants of Lamporecchio, a small community near Pistoia, encounter a completely new approach to caring for people with mental illness. Psychiatric hospitals are closing, and the community and individuals take on responsibility for the ill.

Flight

"Basaglia invited me to Trieste because he had managed to borrow a plane from Itavia and wanted to walk through the sky with patients who had always lived in confinement. This film is a simple chronicle of one day of happiness." – Silvano Agosti
Featuring: Franco Basaglia, David Cooper, Maria Grazia Giannichedda, patients and staff of the Psychiatric Hospital in Trieste.