By: Priscila Néri, Posted: May 18 09

Regions: Brazil

Issues: Mental disability rights, Prisons

Tags: advocacy, Debora Diniz, psychiatric prisons, WITNESS VAI

At least 4,500 people living with mental disorders in Brazil are currently incarcerated in psychiatric prisons.  These institutions blur the lines between patient and inmate, psychiatric treatment and criminal detention, and lead many patients into a judicial maze leaving them behind bars for the rest of their lives.  These prisoners live without adequate treatment or protection - a violation of the UN's principles for the protection of persons with mental illness.

Today's featured pick - House of the Dead - takes us into this world through the stories of Jaime, Antonio, Almerindo, and Bubu - four patients living in a psychiatric prison in the state of Bahia, northeastern Brazil.  The film is narrated by Bubu, a poet who has been through 12 incarcerations in different psychiatric prisons, and whose poem, called "House of the Dead", gives the film its name.  The poem takes us through the prison - a house of "deaths where no bells toll" and where "so-called legal overdoses are common..."

House of the Dead was directed by WITNESS VAI alumna Debora Diniz, a filmmaker and human rights activist who made the film to expose the injustice of psychiatric prisons and pressure Brazilian authorities to push through urgent reforms.  This month, "House of the Dead" was screened during a two-day symposium about mental health and human rights at the offices of Brazil's Attorney General.  The next step?  To get the Public Prosecutor to open a formal investigation into the conditions and rights of these patients.  We'll continue to follow the campaign and keep you posted.  In the meantime, learn more about Debora's organization ANIS - the Institute of Bioethics, Human Rights, and Gender - and about the process of making this film in this post by Tina Singleton.