‘Unforgotten’ Recalls Expose on Asylum

In 1972 Geraldo Rivera received a key from a doctor friend that enabled him to enter Staten Island’s Willowbrook State School, a misleadingly named asylum. He left with enough footage to yield an award-winning WABC-TV series so devastating in exposure of horrendous conditions there that it led to the institution’s closure.

Producer Danny Fisher and director Jack Fisher commemorate the upcoming 25th anniversary of Rivera’s expose with their moving “Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook.” They interview several families who had relatives at Willowbrook and how they’ve coped in the years since. The documentary’s two key families’ relatives now live in group homes, but as challenging as it is to have a developmentally disabled child or sibling, the Fishers suggest encouragingly that over the last 25 years there have been considerable improvements in resources and attitudes.

The film’s most affecting individual is Bernard Carabello, who has managed to create an independent life and career for himself despite having been abandoned by his family at the age of 3 at Willowbrook, where he spent the next 18 years, incorrectly regarded as mentally retarded simply because he is afflicted with cerebral palsy.

Narrated by Danny Aiello, “Unforgotten” presents effective alternatives to Willowbrook but could use more context, informing us as to how well the nation as a whole is handling the care of the developmentally disabled and how such care can be most effectively financed and administered.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: The film’s subject matter, especially involving glimpses of conditions at Willowbrook, is too disturbing for most children.

‘Unforgotten: Twenty-Five Years After Willowbrook’

A Castle Hill release of a City Lights International presentation in association with HeartShare. Director Jack Fisher. Producer Danny Fisher. Executive producer Katie Meskell. Writer Stuart Warmflash. Cinematographer Eric Lau, Mark Kroll, Alan McPheely, Richard Mauro. Editors Constantine Limperis, Matthew Mallinson, Shelly Toscano. Music Hayes Greenfield. 57 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (310) 848-3500.