Aids in Africa
60 minutes • Documentary • Produced in association with: CBC and The National Film Board • Production year: 1990
AIDS in Africa is a unique look at the issues and individuals at the center of the AIDS crisis in Africa. How is AIDS spreading in Africa? What is being done to stop it? Who are the high-risk groups? How does one reach people who have no radios, televisions or newspapers? What is the impact of AIDS on African development? What are the economic and cultural obstacles?
AIDS in Africa explodes myths such as the belief that the HIV virus originated in the African bush, and tackles the economic, political, and educational dimensions of the crisis in a clear and insightful manner.
The film takes viewers to remote locations in Uganda, Zaire, the Ivory Coast, Burundi, Rwanda, Malawi and South Africa. From a blood bank in Uganda to pygmies in the bush of Eastern Zaire; from a classroom in Burundi to a bar in Malawi; from a prostitute in the Ivory Coast, to a township in South Africa, to a clinic deep in the Zairian rain forest: the film tracks down the individuals behind the fact and fiction that is AIDS in Africa.
For the first time on film, AIDS sufferers are interviewed at The AIDS Support Organization (TASO), a unique comprehensive care clinic in Uganda. They speak of their fears and their loneliness, but above all, they speak of their hopes. The images and voices of the people at TASO linger in the mind long after the film is over.
Written by: Elliott Halpern
Directed by: Roger Pyke
Producers: Simcha Jacobovici, Henry Gold and Roger Pyke
Executive Producers: Simcha Jacobovici and John Taylor
Associate Producer: Ric Esther Bienstock
Award Highlights:
- Silver WorldMedal, New York Festivals
- Silver Hugo & Gold Hugo, Chicago International Film Festival
- Gold Award, John Muir Medical Film Festival
