One in 500 college students is living with HIV, according to the American College Health Association, but UNC graduate student Julian Wooten thinks many students are starting to believe that HIV/AIDS is a disease of yesteryear.
“A lot of people think it’s some random illness that you’ll never get,” said Wooten, a graduate student in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
Wooten did not think he would come in contact with the disease either until a friend was diagnosed with HIV.
“Knowing someone who was positive put a face on it for me,” he said. “I wanted to make a documentary so others could know someone who was infected and put a face on it for them.”
Using his degree as a research platform, Wooten created a documentary about the state of the HIV/AIDS movement in North Carolina. The film, “Heart to HARRT: The State of the Movement” — which is set to release on World AIDS Day in the Triangle area — will focus on people who are living here with the disease.
Staff writer Rachel Coleman spoke with Wooten about his documentary and what he hopes viewers will gain from it.
Daily Tar Heel: Why did you decide to make a documentary?
Julian Wooten: For a while this was a documentary about the state of the HIV/AIDS movement, as I’ve noticed that much of the work I’ve seen on the topic was done many years ago. It also seemed that HIV/AIDS had become a secondary topic, since many people have the impression that it is no longer a danger or relevant, which has been termed “AIDS fatigue.” With the funding cuts recently threatening the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, I felt this was a perfect time to do it.
The media is a really powerful medium that allows you to convey everything you want to say. I remember how An Inconvenient Truth changed my whole stance on how I can change the planet. I didn’t even recycle before that. It was very moving, so I hope mine will do the same thing to people.
I worked with Tough Spun studios in Winston-Salem, who produced the documentary, and I got most my funding through fundraising and grants. Researchers from the Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases are interviewed throughout the documentary as well.
DTH: What kind of information and subjects will your documentary present?
JW: The documentary will have three major parts—a piece on policy making, a piece on people who are affected in the state, and an educational piece.
I work with different groups who provide services for HIV/AIDS positive people, like AIDS Alliance in N.C. and the AIDS Care Service in Winston-Salem. They put me in contact with people in the state living with the disease.
I want to show people the statistics of HIV/AIDS, because when you see them, it’s hard not to do something.
DTH: What was it like speaking people who were directly affected by HIV/AIDS?
JW: At first it was really difficult, because the focus of the documentary made people a little nervous. No one wanted to be in a movie about living with the disease. But when I explained to them that the purpose was to send a message about how people can prevent the disease, they opened up.
There were many moving stories — one involved a man who was hit hard financially by the cuts in the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. He showed us the large quantity of medications that he has to take to live, and he worked out his monthly budgets as we watched. By the time he pays for his medicine at the beginning of the month, he is already $1,000 in the hole, not even counting his food and bills for the rest of the month. He said that HIV literally bankrupted him.
I definitely learned that people living with HIV/AIDS are extremely resilient. It changes every aspect of your life—your relationships, your health insurance, and just the way you live.
DTH: What do you hope people take from this documentary?
JW: We’re not chasing an award with this documentary. We just want people to hear the message and learn something that will change their views about what HIV/AIDS is. This disease is not going away anytime soon.
It’s also not something that only gays and drug users have. It’s something anyone can get, whether you’re young or old, straight or gay.
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