back to PRESS PAGE

What was the motivation for producing this documentary?

[Brent] We found out about the Swaziland statistics through a friend and were really disturbed by them. It did not make sense that there could be a country with 38.6% of the adult population infected with HIV/AIDS. If this was true, shouldn't we have heard about it? But we checked around and could only find one American newspaper article that covered the UN's declaration of Swaziland as the worst in the world - and the article was tucked away in the middle of the paper. At this time we did not know much on a personal level about AIDS but there was something about the country of Swaziland and its crisis that pulled us into this story. I wanted to know why it could get so bad there, why I hadn't heard it was so bad, and what if anything could be done to help. And we found it compelling that there was a group of American college students who were going to actively try to combat this spread of the disease. It was a story I felt needed to be documented.

[Jason] I think the American public is pretty well informed that the AIDS crisis is pretty dire in Africa. Most people have heard various statistics but stats can be a bit numbing. They’re just numbers and numbers don’t really draw out a whole lot of emotion. To truly care about something, you have to be caught up in its story. So we were drawn to the idea of telling personal stories from the midst of the pandemic that bring the problem to life. If we could tell a story that really grabs audiences, we believed we could make a significant contribution to the whole awareness campaign.

How is this film different from other AIDS documentaries?

[Brent] Well first of all it’s a narrative. There is a story throughout which I think is often rare in this type of documentary. The story is mostly told through the eyes of some Americans, which hopefully allows an American audience to relate on a much more personal level to the reality of this crisis.

[Jason] And it focuses on just one community, which just happens to be the worst in the world. Other documentaries on HIV/AIDS have tried to cover the issue across the globe. We covered one community in depth which we think could be seen as a microcosm of the greater issue in Sub-Saharan Africa.

[Brent] And then there’s the spiritual aspect. Christians usually get press exposure for what they are against. For what they say is wrong. Lance and Kelly went over there to do something and help, not to tell people they were wrong and going to go to hell. They went to fight the disease and help people. This group of people cares about life, justice, loving people. I think that if you look at the humanitarian aid work going on in the world today you'll find it's mostly Christians who are doing it. But that's not a popular idea. Go examine who was doing all the actual work on the ground after the recent tsunami. Nobody talks about that.

What was the hardest part about telling this story?

[Jason] While hearing these tragic stories, you can’t help but throw your hands up in the air and say it’s hopeless.  I mean, how do you tell a kid to be abstinent when there’s a darn good chance of them getting raped?  How do you hope for moral change when kids are literally starving to death and the only currency they have is their body?  It’s been so hard to communicate hope in such dire realities.  We also realize that it’s hard to try to convince an audience that abstinence could be a viable approach to this problem.

It’s certainly not the only approach, but an important one.  But many people are repelled by that notion, assuming its just a right-wing Christian agenda being pushed on these people.  But the fact is that they’re just trying to save some lives and presenting an important ingredient to the solution.

[Brent] The hardest thing for me was finding out about all the horrible circumstances that have contributed to the spread of the disease in Swaziland. Hearing things I never expected to hear. Seeing people at their worst because of the disease.

Is abstinence realistic?

[Brent] I'm going to ask myself a question instead of answering that. Is stopping the spread of AIDS realistic? I think so. I think the past success in Uganda shows that abstinence is realistic (as the first step in their ABC approach). But there is more to it than just abstinence.

[Jason] An abstinence message in any culture certainly isn’t popular.  But that doesn’t need to mean it’s unrealistic.  If Uganda has successfully curbed their prevalence rates though the ABC approach, there must be something to it.  I can’t imagine only the B (Be faithful) and C (Condoms) being the only relevant factors.  And as Alan Brody from UNICEF told us, if the statistical age of when kids start having sex can be pushed back a couple years, then that will have a significant impact on a population’s infection rate.

[Brent] The thing is, it comes down to the choice of the person. The fact is that those who get HIV/AIDS through sex made a decision that led to their contraction of the disease. Unfortunately sometimes this decision is made out of ignorance, denial, or even apathy. If you follow the ABC's then your chances of contraction go down drastically if not completely. And yes there are people out there who abstain from sex until they are married, and then they choose to remain faithful, so yes abstinence is realistic. And it's guaranteed. So it's all up to the person.

Is teaching abstinence to the Swazi people an example of forcing morality on them? And how can some say that condoms are not effective?

[Brent]  One of the first things that shocked me when I got into Swaziland was the widespread availability of free condoms and the amount of advertisements around for condoms. They were everywhere. The Swazis knew about condoms and how to get them and why to use them. But the infection rate is still rising. At first I wished we could have gotten into the condom issue more, but we didn't have time and in the end it wasn't what the film was about.  While I was there I didn't hear any teachers say condoms were bad. But they did say it's not foolproof. Condoms have not exclusively worked in decreasing the infection rate. Look at the research Harvard's Edward Green did for USAID. He used to be a leading proponent for condoms, but after the research he now supports abstinence.

And no I don't think any morals were forced on them. It was a choice that was presented. But you know what, in a sense they were teaching what the Swazis traditionally believed but have largely fallen away from - faithfulness. Being faithful to a spouse is a pretty ancient idea.

[Jason] It’s not that condoms aren’t important. And I don’t think Ted Green or any of our interviewees or Brent and I would discredit their critical role in all this. It just seems that abstinence has been the stepchild of the ABC approach and deserves a greater emphasis, especially since condoms alone haven’t seemed to work. And you can call it “forcing morality” or whatever, but frankly, at this point in the crisis, lives just need to be saved. And I can’t see anything wrong with trying to do that.

What do you think the average American can learn from the movie?

[Brent] I would like to think the movie would allow them to experience on a more personal level what's going on in Africa. Before doing the film it was all just statistics and words that I had a hard time comprehending.  Now it's real. I would hope that after seeing the film the viewer knows how real the situation is.