Best Short Documentary - Madrid Film and Human Rights Festival 2020. | Best Documentary - 65th Hungarian National Independent Film festival 2020.

Story

On 19 June 2009 Kostya Proletarsky, a drug user and HIV activist, died of tuberculosis meningitis at the Botkin Hospital in St. Petersburg, Russia. His death was the result of three years of mistreatment and torture at the prison facility No. 4 in Karelia, Russia.

In Russia, where drug treatment is barely available, imprisonment becomes the main “solution” to the problem of drug addiction. But unfortunately, these institutions don’t cure. Instead, prisons kill.

The animated hand drawn documentary, featuring the original audio interview with Kostya and his mother, Irina, aims to commemorate Kostya Proletarsky and many others who have not survived prison systems around the world.

The film is produced by the Rights Reporter Foundation, narrated by Anya Sarang, directed by István Gábor Takács, and is hand drawn frame by frame by Lili Rontó.

Trailer

You can download the press kit by clicking here! (It includes pictures, press release, directors statement, additional information, poster and bios.)

The full film

The Story of Kostya in Details

On 19 June 2009 at 6 o’clock in the evening, Kostya Proletarsky, a drug user and HIV activist died of tuberculosis meningitis at the Botkin Hospital of Infectious Diseases in St. Petersburg, Russia. His death was the result of three years of mistreatment at the prison facility No. 4 in Karelia, close to the Arctic Polar Circle in Russia.

In the prison camp, Kostya was denied the right to continue his HIV medication. Inmates, locked up at the so called Turbo-HIV ward (where HIV positive people who were infected with Tuberculosis were isolated) were regularly beaten and tortured. As punishment and to teach them ‘who’s the boss,’ guards often spilled 30 litres of bleach mixed with ammonia onto the floor of the closed cell, to suffocate people. For giving someone the address of the HIV clinic in St. Petersburg, Kostya was punished severely. Guards put a gas mask on his head, with 1.5 litres of ammonia attached to the bottom. These are just a few examples of the cruel and degrading treatment he and his fellow inmates had to suffer.

In Russia, where methadone substitution is banned, drug treatment is ineffective, and rehabilitation is barely available to poor people, imprisonment becomes the main “solution” to the problem of drug addiction. But unfortunately, prisons don’t cure. They cannot replace the quality drug treatment and social support that help people to deal with the problems behind their drug dependency. Instead, prisons kill.

Upon Kostya’s release in 2008, harm reduction and human rights expert Anya Sarang recorded an audio interview with Kostya in the hospital, in which he provided testimony of the unimaginable horrors occurring at the prison camp. Later in 2009 the Drugreporter team interviewed Irina Proletarsky, Kostya’s mother, in which she talked about the life of her son, and about their fight to beat Kostya’s addiction to heroin.

Since then our plan has been to produce an animated documentary, using the original audio interviews of Kostya and Irina, to raise awareness and to commemorate Kostya Proletarsky and many others who hadn’t survived the Russian prison system.

Now we have finished the 30 minute long film with Hungarian artist Lili Rontó. She has hand-drawn the animated film frame by frame. 

Festival Screenings

1 August 2022 - ATLAS DOCS 2022, the 1st International HIV Documentary Festival in Cinéma du Musée and Cinéma du Parc, Montreal, Canada.

11 June 2022. - Hungarian Motion Picture Festival, Veszprém

15 February - April 30 2021. - The film is available in this time frame for free online, at the Re:Verzió. The film is only available from Hungary.

10-14 December 2020. - Madrid Film and Human Rights Festival - Best short documentary award given to our film!

10-22 November 2020. - Verzio International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Budapest. (Held online).

9-15 November 2020. - Bucharest International Animation Film Festival 2020, Bucharest, Romania. (Held online).

23-26 October 2020.  - Szczecin Film Festival, Castle Cinema in Szczecin, Poland (Held online).

1-4 October 2020. - 65th Hungarian National Independent Film festival, 17:00 MeDoRa Park Agárd, Balaton út 50. - Main prize awarded!

24–26 September 2020. - Morehouse College Human Rights Film Festival (Online festival, click here to enter.) Nominated for award.

5 September 2020. - Busho Budapest Short Film festival Saturday 10:00 Puskin Cinema, Amarcord Hall

22-23 July 2020. -  AFEW International Movie Screening, Vrijpaleis Amsterdam
Paleisstraat 107, 1012 ZL Amsterdam (Non Festival Screening)

(After the festival screenings the film will be published online)

Production Team

LILI RONTÓ
Animation, background and character design, music

ISTVÁN GÁBOR TAKÁCS
Directing, screenplay, camera, editing, sound design and music

ANYA SARANG
Narrator

PÉTER SÁROSI
Producer

DÁNIEL HUSZÁR
Animation advisor

BENCE DÓCZI, TAMÁS BOHÁCS
Audio and music mastering

ANDRÁS KISS, PÉTER WAGNER-PUSKÁS
Pilot audio mastering

DARYL SULLIVAN
English language proofreading

GERGŐ TISZA
End credit song guitar

MAGDA MAJOR
Head of administration, rights reporter foundation

ANASTASIYA APEKHTINA
Interpreter and logistics

KATALIN SÓS, ALEXANDRA GURINOVA, FERENC HERCZEG, IGOR KUZMENKO, KARINA WORKU
Translation

ALEXEY KURMANAEVSKII, KATHERINA ZINGER
Saint petersburg location support

Pictures from the Film

About the Authors

Graphic Artist

rontolili

Lili Rontó is a Hungarian graphic artist. She earned her diploma at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in 2003. She produces graphic art for the Hungarian Institute for Educational Research and Development and the Academy Publishing House and other book publishers. She produces album covers, poster designs, animation clips, logos and many more. Her unique style of drawing and painting has been recognized at several exhibitions. She also produces the music with István Gábor Takács for the animated documentary. You can find a selection of her art here

Director

takacsistvangabor

István Gábor Takács is a human rights activist, videographer and trainer. He ran the Video Advocacy Program of the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2007-2015. He worked as a needle exchange program counselor for 5 years. He is author of several articles on harm reduction and cameraman, editor, director and co-director of more than 700 online videos, among them longer documentaries, such as ”A Day in the Life: The World of Humans Who Use Drugs” (2016), “Without Rights” (2009), “Without a Chance” (2014), “Room in the 8th District” (2014) and “The Invisible” (2011). His works have been awarded first prize multiple times at the Kreatív Webvideo Award for best online documentary, he and his colleagues received the Hégető Honorka Award acknowledging online and television work for marginalised populations in 2013, and the International Rolleston Award in 2017 for achievements in international harm reduction advocacy. Since 2016 he works at the Rights Reporter Foundation, where besides producing films, he is training activists in video advocacy. CONTACT: takacsistvangabor@rightsreporter.net

Narrator

anyasarang

Anya Sarang is a public health activist from Moscow, Russia. She is a founder of the Russian Harm Reduction Network (currently ESVERO) (2004) and Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice (ARF) (2009) – the main advocacy groups fighting for the rights and health of people who use drugs in Russia. She is currently the President of the ARF. For the past 18 years, Anya’s work has focused on developing and supporting the emerging harm reduction movement in Russia and Eastern Europe / Central Asia (EECA) through training and networking activities. Anya has received MSc in Drugs and Drug Policy from the University of London and her research interest in sociology and anthropology focuses on the qualitative research in human rights, structural violence and access to prevention and treatment of HIV, HepC, tuberculosis, and overdose for drug users and other key affected populations in Russia and EECA region. Anya has been recognized as a courageous and effective advocate for human rights and evidence-based public health: in 2004 she has been awarded International Rolleston Award (for outstanding contribution to Harm Reduction) in 2011 a Crystal of Hope Award for ARF efforts to advocate for humane and effective HIV services, despite the government opposition; and in 2012 the Human Rights Watch/Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network award for action in HIV and Human Rights. Please support the Andrey Rylkov Foundation here!

Producer

sarosip

Péter Sárosi is the Executive Director of the Rights Reporter Foundation. He is a human rights activist and drug policy expert, the founder and editor of the Drugreporter website since 2004, the author of countless articles, co-author of books and director of films about harm reduction and drug policy reform. He was the Director of the Drug Policy Program at the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union between 2004 and 2015. He is experienced in working at international drug policy forums such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs. He was twice elected to the Core Group of the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs. He is the co-chair of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network. He has been representing the Hungarian Harm Reduction Network at the government’s drug advisory body in Hungary since 2007. Peter also contributed to building a network of advocacy NGOs in Europe: the European Drug Policy Initiative. He provided technical assistance to several NGOs, and launched several campaigns on drug policy reform. As a member of the Drugreporter video advocacy team, he has produced videos about drug policy issues in a number of countries. These videos are now part of a unique online drug policy video library.

Rights Reporter Foundation

The Rights Reporter Foundation (RRF) is a non-profit organisation founded by Hungarian activists to advocate for the human rights of vulnerable populations. We use the power of video for community mobilisation and advocacy campaigning. Our vision is of a society where policies affecting vulnerable communities are evidence-informed and respect human rights, as well as developed and implemented with the meaningful involvement of these communities. The main focus of our work is on people who use drugs, sex workers and people who live with HIV, but we are glad to work with other stigmatised communities, such as LMBTQ people, ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees and homeless people. Our mission is to educate the public about the role of evidence in policy formulation, to provide a voice for vulnerable communities, and to improve the advocacy efforts of NGOs by providing technical assistance and training.

Downloadable Contents and Resources

"The broken oath" article by Gusztáv Schubert about our film in the February 2021 episode of Filmvilág (in print format).

Discussion with the Authors in Hungarian at the Vosztok Show at Tilos Rádió on 25 November 2020.

A Dot and Line blog post about our movie on the occasion of the Verzió 2020 Festival, on 2020 November 17.

An online discussion with the director on the occasion of Verzió 2020 festival, on November 15, 2020.

Article on our movie on the occasion of the Verzió 2020 festival in Magyar Narancs.

Article on HVG-hu, opinion piece on the best films at the 2020 Verzió, including our film!

A discussion with the director at the Szczecin Film Festival 2020. Streamed live on Facebook on October 25, 2020.

Discussion with Anya Sarang, narrator of the film at the first international screening, organised by AFEW international in Amsterdam on the 22nd of July, 2020.

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights decided that Russia violated the human rights of Kostya by not providing him HAART (HIV treatment) while he was imprisoned. The court ordered Russia to pay a compensation of 20000 EUR to Irina and another inmate's sister. You can read the court decision here.

You can read the full interview with Kostya, recorded and transcribed by Anya Sarang in 2009.

Donors of the Film

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Individual Donors

ADAM STASIAK
ADRIANO BRIASCO
ALEKSANDRA BARTOSZKO
ALEXANDER BOTASHEV
DAVID ANDRASSEW
ARNAUD SIMON
LASZLO KRISTOF BALAZS
MARIA BARNA
MÓNIKA BÉRES
MARIANN BERNHARDT
BOGLARKA FEDORKO
ILLÉS CSIKÓS
FERENC CZIGLER
BALÁZS DÉNES
DIANE SAINT-RÉQUIER
DONALD MACPHERSON
DR. TIBOR PÁL
ETHAN NADELMANN
TAMÁS FAZEKAS
TÍMEA FEKETE SZABÓ

ÁDÁM FOGARASSY
GABY KOZÀR
VERONIKA GARAMI
ANDREA GENÁT
FLÓRA HORVÁTH
JAVIER CEPEDA
JEAN-PAUL GRUND
ANDRAS JURAK
KATALIN FELVINCZI
ÁGNES KELTAI
DÉNES KOVÁCS
ÉVA KOVÁCS-GYŐRFFY
LIESE RECKE
GABRIELLA MAGYAR
MARTA DUNAY
MAURO GUARINIERI
MÁRTI MÉSZÁROS
MICHAEL YOSHPA
MORGANA DANIELE
NATÁLIA CZANK

NEIL HUNT
OLGA SLOBODSKAYA
PATRICK O'HARE
TAMÁS PATROVITS
MÁRTON PÉCSY
PEERANUT VISETSUTH
ÁGNES PETHŐ
PETRA SCHULZ
RICHARD ELLIOTT
SHAY VANDERSCHAEGHE
SOPHIE PINKHAM
STANISLAV KUPFERSCHMIDT
ZSOFIA SUBA
ISTVÁNNÉ TAKÁCS
TOUCHON SEBASTIEN
VANDA HAMILTON
VASILE ROXANA-ELENA
KRISZTINA VIRÁNYI