Chce się żyć (2013)

This is a Polish movie (called "Life Feels Good" in English) in Polish with English subtitles. It is about the real life (from the 1980s to 2000s) of Mateusz Rosiński who has cerebral palsy. It is one of those movies that everyone just has to see. It is so well-made and also a great story. Dawid Ogrodnik portrays the older Mateusz. I have worked with the disabled - focusing on those with cp) and  it is so uncanny how he acts and moves just like a person with cerebral palsy.

The film shows the differences in care the disabled receive  - especially in Eastern Europe from Communist to modern times. The Communists saw the disabled as "unproductive" and so did everything to hide them from others in the "workers' paradise." Mateusz's parents were told to put him in an institution, but they didn't and instead he lived with the rest of his family (a sister and brother) in their Soviet-style apartment complex. Things happen throughout the film that test both Mateusz and his family- I won't give them away  - but Mateusz goes from being treated as someone with no mental abilities to a "regular" person.  There is one scene in the film were Mateusz makes himself known - without speaking - and it is one of the best in any movie I have ever seen.

To know that this is based on a true story and that Mateusz actually went through all of this is even more compelling. It really makes you stop and think about the people around you - the disabled and the non-disabled - and how you see them.