GET DOWN understands that there is a need for more HIV, AIDS, and overall
sexual health awareness. Additionally, more education is required around gender
and sexual identity. Cultural
mores and spiritual beliefs, which are often reinforced at home and among
peers, are often a barrier to gender identity studies or acceptance of
alternative lifestyles outside of the home. Thirty years later, we still have to reinforce the fact
that HIV and AIDS does not discriminate.
It is not a “gay disease”.
Stigma is still a huge barrier to testing. The NO MORE STIGMA
FILM SERIES seeks to use the filmed medium to “edu-tain”, and encourage
dialogue around all things sexual identity and HIV/AIDS. The NO MORE STIGMA FILM SERIES will show conversation
worthy films followed by Q&A panels.
Kicking off Thursday, June 21st at the renown Maysles
Cinema in Harlem, NY, the NO MORE STIGMA FILM
SERIES will highlight an excerpt from "25 To Life", the
buzz-worthy documentary by Mike Brown about William
Brawner, a young man who kept his HIV status a secret for over twenty-five
years, since he was two years old.
Now he seeks redemption from his promiscuous past, and embarks on a new
phase of life with his wife who is HIV negative.
 |
| William Brawner, subject of documentary "25 To Life" |
Immediately following,
the critically acclaimed feature length documentary "The Carrier" by
Maggie Betts. When 28-year-old Mutinta Mweemba first
shares all the hopes and dreams she once nurtured as a child, her aspirations
seem no different from those of many other young women around the world. She dreams
of meeting and falling in love with a handsome man, being married and raising
children and hopefully one day providing those children with a better life than
her own. But Mutinta's dreams were
never realized. Her soft-spoken husband came with two other wives, and the
remote Zambian village that she calls home is being ravaged by a deadly new
epidemic -- a mysterious disease called AIDS. Set against the backdrop of today's most urgent plague,
Maggie Betts's "The Carrier" is a stunning portrait of both a family and a
community, caught in a desperate struggle to emancipate their next generation
from AIDS.
The NO MORE STIGMA
FILM SERIES is inconjunction with GET DOWN, Maysles Cinema and Bleu Magazine. The Maysles Cinema is a non-profit organization and there is a suggested donation at the door.
RSVP here: http://www.facebook.com/events/308881262528955/
-- GET DOWN Team
getdownpsa2008@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment