The San Francisco Black Film Festival Offers a Vibrant Array of AIDS Realities

by Chael Needle

Film festivals often give us a first look—and sometimes the only big-screen chance—to watch shorts and features representing HIV/AIDS issues. Last June, the seventh annual San Francisco Black Film Festival (SFBFF) did not disappoint.

This year’s festival, A Global Gumbo, made good on its mission to “celebrate African American cinema and the African cultural Diaspora and to showcase a diverse collection of films...that highlight the beauty and complexity of the African and African American experience.” The U.S. premiere of Haiti’s On the Verge of a Fever opened the festival, which was made even more exciting by the appearance of cast members from the film Hustle & Flow. Journalist Adisa Banjoko hosted the Urban Culture and Hip Hop Series. And Urban Kidz programming ran the week before. This diversity extended to the AIDS-themed films: A short film from South Africa, A Picture of Us, asks and answers the question of what AIDS “looks like” while Tracy Taylor’s contemporary drama Walking on Sunshine [A&U, December 2004] explores the lives of two sisters who, despite their different life choices, still share a similar risk for HIV.

“This year, the festival received more films, not only about HIV/AIDS, but also about men who sleep with men. We received about six or seven, and that’s the first time that has happened,” says Ave Montague, founder and executive director of the SFBFF. It’s understandable why this topic resonates with filmmakers: The media and the AIDS community have singled out African-American men who have sex with men as a “new” prevention target. These films—including Heart Song, by Chris Elia, and On the Low, by Luther M. Mace—move beyond the hype and offer complexity. Other films, such as Night, directed by Detroit-based filmmaker Marlon Reid, are more directly concerned with HIV. The short film follows Omar, a successful man who is HIV-positive and engaged to a woman but sleeping with men on the side. One night, however, he has a crisis of conscience.

 Night was written by Haran Robinson, whom Reid befriended at film school. He “passed away from AIDS on May 4,” says Reid. “He was like my little brother. I met him five years ago and he opened my eyes to a couple of things. You read about [living with HIV/AIDS] and you go okay...but to see someone suffering. You try to spend as much time with them as possible. My girlfriend and I would go see him all the time.”

He was an HIV counselor but “it was his dream to write screenplays. None of his projects ever seemed to pan out. People would pull out, and no one was interested. So when he met me and he realized I was serious about filmmaking, he gave me the project. It was his dying wish for it to be made and I made it.” Robinson never had the chance to see the final product.

At the festival, the film found a community partner in the Black Coalition on AIDS, and Reid was pleased “because the whole purpose of the film was to get people aware of what is going on and trying to stop ignorance.” Montague has a similar take: “It’s my job, or anyone’s in the arts, to educate people about AIDS. As we know, the disease is still here.” She would like to see more films geared toward younger audiences. “I know MTV, VH-1, and BET have campaigns, but I think there needs to be more.”

Asked about this scarcity, Montague has several thoughts. “First of all, some people are ignorant about HIV/AIDS. Then, [those in Hollywood] are probably scared to put AIDS on the big screen because when big films are made it’s all about the bottom line. Will it generate money? And, a lot of people may not go to attend a film about HIV/AIDS. You could include it as part of a plot, but I don’t think one could ever market it as an ‘HIV/AIDS film,’” says Montague, who owns a PR agency. The major studios will most likely continue to choose profit over pertinence, but venues like the San Francisco Black Film Festival will continue to introduce black independent films into the mainstream and keep issues like HIV/AIDS at the forefront of public consciousness.

For more information about the Festival, log on to www.sfbff.org.

Chael Needle is Managing Editor of A&U.

August 2005