- Title: Bulgarias Abandoned Children Update
- Date: 1st January 1970
- Description:The Heart-Rendering and Eye-Opening Story of Bulgaria's Institutionalised Children In 2007 the BBC documentary film and#8220;Bulgaria's Abandoned Childrenand#8221; caused an international outcry because the images of neglect were so shocking to witness in a country that had just become a member of the European Union. Bulgaria has more institutionalised mentally and physically disabled children than anywhere else in Europe. The film is a heart-rending and eye-opening look into the life of one institution. Viewers were so overwhelmed with emotion and anger when they saw Bulgarian children brutalised and dying before their eyes when in State care,having been abandoned by their parents because of some form of disability. After the transmission of the film,MEP's and Ministers across Europe set off to Bulgaria to demand changes,to ask to see conditions in other institutes and to donate money to instigate to process of change and de-institutionalisation in a country suffering from the hangover of Communism. Eighteen months later,the director Kate Blewett,returned to Bulgaria to film with a handful of the children featured in the original documentary to see where they are today and how their lives have changed since the outcry and changes brought about by the film. The original documentary was set in a small Bulgarian village in an institute called Mogilino and#8211; a place where 75 unwanted disabled children were growing up. Many of the children couldn't walk or talk,not necessarily because they were unable but because they had been neglected and never had the opportunity to learn. With extraordinary access,Kate Blewitt takes us back to Mogilino and shows us what extraordinary changes can occur when a person is given loving and#8220;careand#8221;and#8230;
- Broadcaster:Channel 4
- Collection: Channel 4
- Genre:Music
- Producer:True Vision Productions Ltd.
- Transmission Date:01/01/1970
- Rights:On Request
- Decade: 1970s