纪录片《在一起》柏林电影节首映

    A documentary about AIDS sufferers in China and the discrimination* they face in their daily lives had a warm reception at the Berlin International Film Festival yesterday.

    Based on interviews and emails with a wide range of HIV positive* people, director Zhao Liang said he hoped the film, “Zai Yi Qi” (“Together”), could change attitudes in China, where at least 740,000 suffer from the AIDS virus.

    Zhao used Internet chat groups to track down many of his subjects, the vast majority of whom refused to show their face for fear of “letting their family down.” Several declined to appear on camera at all.

    The stories moved many in the audience to tears.

    One 30-year-old drug user, known only as “Duckweed,” explained how she planned to kill herself and her four-year-old son, who was also infected*.

    “I couldn’t see the point of living any more, so I bought some rat poison and put it in our rice. My boy wanted to eat the rice straightaway,” she said sobbing.

    “But then I thought, ‘how can I let him leave the world after only a few years of life?’ I changed my mind.”

    The three main characters are Hu Zetao, an 11-year-old boy, Liu Luping, his carer and Xia, a stand-in actor. All three worked on the set of a previous Chinese film about AIDS, “Till Death Do Us Part,” by director Gu Changwei.

    In this “film-within-a-film,” Zhao shows how discrimination against HIV positive people on the set turns over time into compassion* and affection.

    “The film tries to counter the discrimination that many AIDS sufferers still face in China,” Zhao told the audience.

    “Before making this film, I knew very little about this disease and the goal is to make more Chinese people understand better how AIDS is transmitted and how it affects sufferers,” he said.

    Although emotional in some parts, the film is ultimately about the hope the sufferers have in a brighter future and their courage in struggling against a wave of discrimination.

    Zhao said three of his subjects had decided to show their faces after all, in the hope it could boost understanding.

    Xia, one of these, said: “If my face can help promote tolerance, then there is no need to cover it.”

    The film is screening out of competition at the Berlin film festival, which runs until February 20. (SD-Agencies)