Treatment Action Campaign activist

AIDS activists affiliated to the Treatment Action Campaign use video as part of their outreach work. Follow their personal stories and experiences, as well as their political views on the AIDS crisis. Showing the video on a screen in the Nyango Shopping Mall they interact with the public and raise awareness. This story weaves a compelling picture of four courageous people.

The Director, Jack Idol, comments: "For me this project has been an experiment in democratizing the use of video through using big screens in places like malls, clinics etc. The intention is to establish an infrastructure where groups like this can use the power of video to take their own messages to a mass audience. The group has been marvellously committed and giving. We had been meeting regularly planning and conceptualizing this project since it was first announced last December. At times it seemed as though it would never come together. But when it did everyone pulled their weight to get through what was a very technically difficult and demanding schedule."

A grassroots activists movement based on the demands of HIV-positive people for treatment now exists in South Africa. This movement rivals and possibly surpasses the great movement around Act Up in the United States in the 1980s and early 90s. This documentary is not a comprehensive document of the South African movement. Instead it probes deeply into the lives of some of the people who have made that movement. It shows the courage, even heroism of these people as they challenge the circumstances of the HIV/AIDS crisis and draw deeply on the traditions of struggle against apartheid in this new struggle.