AIDS victim's tale earns Academy nod
Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon, winners for Best Documentary Short Subject, The Blood of Yingzhou District, show their Oscar statues at the 79th Academy Awards in Hollywood. Reuters |
With both his parents dead from AIDS and himself HIV-positive, Guo is shunned by everyone in his remote village of East China's Anhui Province. Even his relatives dare not go near him, fearing they can catch the deadly virus.
Gao is the central character in The Blood of Yingzhou District, a documentary by Hong Kong-born filmmaker Ruby Yang and award-winning producer Thomas Lennon, about an epidemic that has so far orphaned 75,000 children throughout China.
Just 39 minutes long, the film outshone other candidates to win the short documentary award at this year's Oscars.
It already has the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the 2006 Silverdocs Documentary Festival in Washington DC under its belt and has so far been screened at 13 film festivals across the world.
"It's a very quietly stunning film," said Nina Gilden Seavey, director of Silverdocs' Docs Rx offerings. "You look for movies that tell a deep story that is unexpected. This one does."
The filmmakers tell their tale through the children turned pariahs in four villages in Anhui. "The villagers knew Gao Jun was sick but he was neglected and ignored. He lived like an animal," Yang said. Gao's parents, like many other farmers, fell victim to AIDS after donating their blood to earn a bit of money.
With the help of the local charity head Zhang Ying, Yang gained the trust of the children and their extended families so that they would open up to tell their stories. With Zhang's help, the filmmakers not only talked to the orphaned children but also got to quiz officials about the extent of the scourge.
Yang and Lennon are founders of the China AIDS Media Project, an ambitious new effort to bring disease prevention to a country that only in recent years has acknowledged its AIDS epidemic. In 2004, they wrote and edited the first major AIDS prevention campaign to air on the Chinese mainland television.
What Yang saw broke her heart, especially when she entered the home where the children lived alone. "There was this smell of death," she said. "We had to find that balance where you don't overwhelm the audience or drive them away, yet at the same time keep the power of the narrative.
"Maintaining emotional distance was difficult. For months, I wouldn't give up certain stories even though I kind of knew they slowed the film down. Tom would fly in and we'd have screaming matches over cutting the film down."
The film shows the children's fierce determination to survive. In one scene, the children resolve to become educated as a way to one day better their tormentors. "I hate being looked down upon," says one boy. "One day I will surpass them all."
Gao Jun, the boy at the heart of the film, is now on medication and his health has improved significantly, according to Yang. He has also been moved to the home of an elderly couple who have lost their two sons and one daughter-in-law to AIDS, and they are believed to be taking good care of him. He started kindergarten in the fall.
"All we know is that they are no longer shunned by the villagers," Yang said.
(China Daily 02/27/2007 page18)
