I’m Positive 2018
Positive Voices Sound Stronger
Dates
Tickets
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Time & Date
Introduction
For World AIDS Day 2018, the group Positive Voice hosts a series of interactive events, bringing individuals with HIV and their stories to the forefront.
Two days of information and acceptance to fight prejudice around HIV.
First-person accounts of the experience of living with HIV takes center stage in the two-day event I’m Positive, organized by Positive Voice, the Association of People Living with HIV in Greece. Just before World AIDS Day 2018, HIV-positive individuals will speak out with daring and sincerity about their lives, through personal narratives, cinematic projections, and other activities whose historical and social elements aim both to move and to awaken the audience.
Children and teenagers will have the opportunity to speak with members of the HIV-positive community about issues of sexual health, as well as the challenges and prejudices such individuals face, in hopes of achieving a more rapid breakdown of the stigma that accompanies this group.
Watch the conversation
Foregrounding life with HIV in the first person.
Program
10:00
Upper Stage
"The Cure" by Peter Horton | 1995, USA (98’)
Intended for primary-school students | Participation is now closed
Having just moved to a new town, Erik (Brad Renfro) is thrilled when he makes friends with his younger neighbor, Dexter (Joseph Mazzello), and his friendly mom (Annabella Sciorra). Despite the disapproval of his own neglectful mother (Diana Scarwid), Erik grows close to Dexter, who suffers from AIDS. As the disease's impact on Dexter's life grows more noticeable, Erik and Dexter embark on a quest down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, where hope may yet lie with a doctor there.
11.45 | Upper Stage
Conversation (30’)
Students have the opportunity to converse with an educator and an individual living with HIV about prevention, treatment, and life with HIV, about the importance of sex education and issues of discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identification.
The conversation will be moderated by journalist Dimitris Theodoropoulos.
17.00 | Main Stage
"PrEP Project" – Episode 1: “Pop!” | 2017, USA (5’)
“PrEP Project” is a series of crowdfunded short documentary films, directed by Chris Tipton-King, intended to serve as sex education tools, adapted to the 21st century. They all focus on PrEP (Pre-exposure prophylaxis), sexually transmitted diseases, undetectable viral load, and the social stigma of HIV. They avoid didacticism, presenting personal histories in a more comical light.
Pushing Dead by Tom E. Brown | 2016, USA (110΄)
When a struggling writer—HIV-positive for over 20 years—ill-advisedly deposits a $100 birthday check, he is dropped from his health plan for earning too much. In this new era of sort-of universal care, his only options are long shots: take on a helpless bureaucracy, or come up with $3000 a month to buy his medication.
20.30 | Main Stage
Opening Ceremony (50’)
Τhe individuals who put their heart and soul into the “I’m Positive” campaign meet at the Onassis Stegi. Through four stories, hopes and fears emerge, the reality that was and is experienced by HIV-positive individuals in Greece, and the medical and social dimensions of the disease: a couple with mixed HIV status, a mother who’s son is living with HIV, a gay man asserting his right to preventative treatment, and an obstetrician treating HIV-positive women in Greece share their thoughts and experiences with the audience. They are joined by the infectious disease specialist who since the 80s has devoted his career to treating the HIV epidemic in Greece.
The conversation will be moderated by journalist Elena Akrita.
21.30 | Ground-floor Foyer
Wine Party
Upper Stage
10.00
"The Cure" by Peter Horton | 1995, USA (98’)
11.45
Conversation (30’)
Intended for primary-school students | Participation is now closed
16.00
"Indetectables" – Episode 5: “The Wall” | 2018, Spain (16’)
Self-contained short films that focus on the social treatment of people with HIV, the absence of information about the safest sexual practices, but also the fearful treatment of the “other”.
"PrEP Project" – Episode 2: “OMG, You’re Bad!” | 2017, USA (5’)
"Buddies", by Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. | 1985, USA (81’)
Arthur J. Bressan Jr. (Gay USA) created this gay indie masterpiece in 1985, after more than a decade of making gay adult films. When 25-year-old yuppie David (David Schachter) volunteers to be a “buddy” to an AIDS patient, the community center assigns him to Robert (Geoff Edholm), a 32-year-old gay activist from California who has been abandoned by his friends and lovers. This devastating two-hander (the rest of the cast is heard only off-screen) unfolds within Robert’s Manhattan hospital room; as David gazes out at the piers and rooftops of Manhattan, we hear his deftly scripted diary entries in voiceover. And as David is changed by knowing Robert, so, too, are we. In the simplicity of the story and the elegance of its unfolding, Bressan and Buddies achieve a rare perfection. It’s a timeless portrayal of an entire era in gay history.
18.00
"PrEP Project" – Episode 3: “Undetectable” | 2017, USA (5’)
"Holding the Man", by Neil Armfield | 2015, Australia (127’)
In 1970s Australia, two teen boys fall in love with each other and defeat obstacles to their 15-year relationship, until a new crisis comes their way.
21.00
"Indetectables" – Episode 1: “Me, too” | 2018, Spain (16’)
"Vakuum", by Christine Repond | 2017, Switzerland/Germany (85’)
Amidst the preparations for her 35th wedding anniversary, Meredith discovers that she is HIV-positive. Only her husband comes into question as the carrier. She finds out that he has been unfaithful to her with prostitutes and confronts him. Following an intense fight, they decide to deal with [face?] the condemnations and the illness together. But how much injury can love withstand?
23.00
"Indetectables" – Episode 2: “Revive or die” | 2018, Spain (16’)
"Sauvage", by Camille Vidal-Naquet | 2018, France (110’) – Screening by Red Umbrella Athens
Leo is 22 and sells his body on the street for a bit of cash. The men come and go, and he stays right where he is - longing for love. He doesn't know what the future will bring. He hits the road. His heart is pounding.
A CONVERSATION WITH STUDENTS ON HIV
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