Matthew Krouse
Will adult television audiences respond to the documentary series Steps for the Future the way that school kids are supposed to respond to the Learning Channel? However harrowing these tales of HIV survival are, Steps should be prescribed viewing in every home.
In an important manoeuvre, SABC1 has secured 15 episodes of this series for its new documentary slot, scheduled for 10pm on Monday nights. The big question is whether sophisticated suburbanites will see enough importance in Steps to give up Ally McBeal in favour of life-or-death issues that go beyond New York loft life and courtroom drama.
First up, on April 1, is Jane Lipman’s look at pregnant women and the topical issue of nevirapine use in Mother to Child. For an April Fool’s Day transmission, this documentary is no joke. In fact, it’s a serious achievement.
Lipman and crew spent months following two HIV-positive women, called Pinkie and Patience, through the final stages of their pregnancies to the births of their babies, including the ensuing dramas that filled their lives.
A television diet of UnitedStates sitcoms and ultra-slick foreign documentaries ill prepares one for such a close look at the private ordeals of ordinary citizens. Mother to Child is almost uncomfortable in its intimacy. You watch Patience’s Caesarean birth in real time, and you see Pinkie going home to her mother’s house, where she tells her family about her HIV status.
Most heart-rending is the manner in which township folk have opened themselves up to Lipman’s professional film crew, indicating that there must have been some sort of trust built up between them in the process.
“We went along on a Wednesday morning to Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital, to the support group they hold every week for HIV-positive pregnant women. And every Wednesday morning there’s 50 new faces in that room. We went along with a counsellor called Florence Ngubeni. She talked to the women in the group. She said, ‘Who wants to do this? It’s an educational film,’ and these two women came forward, saying, ‘We’re happy to disclose’, which believe me is a major move for them.
“In preparation there’s been a workshop with the Steps people about what it’s going to be like to be on national television. We are workshopping with them about how it’s going to feel to be so public. The people running Steps felt that you can’t just pick up people, be with them in the intimate details of their lives, go through this emotional journey with them about whether they’re HIV or not, or whether their boyfriends are or their babies are, and what drugs they can get … and then suddenly leave them. It’s got a kind of arrogance to it that we can’t do. So, we followed up.”
According to series producer Don Edkins “it is the responsibility of documentary filmmakers. Particularly when you’re dealing with a sensitive issue like HIV/Aids, you want to make sure that the characters who have given so much to the films understand the process that has happened and are able to contribute to further screenings of the films.
“First of all, what we’re doing is we’re asking them to talk about their expectations of what the film would bring. A lot of what has come up is that they want their stories to be told, that they want their situation to be understood. But at the same time they’re quite scared of appearing on national television around such a sensitive issue. So, over two days we are workshopping about 30 of the characters who have been brought to Johannesburg.
“The workshops have been conducted by two people from our Steps team. Our coordinator has been an HIV/Aids educator and a parliamentary lobbyist for 10 years, and she is running the workshop.
“Just by listening to the people in the workshop, you find that there’s a lot of talent among these characters. A lot of them are counsellors and some of them are training to be counsellors. We would like to find ways that they will take the films in which they appear, and go out. It’s very powerful when you have a character from a film speaking after a screening.”
Given the current national drama around the supply of nevirapine, the showing of Mother to Child comes with perfect timing. “At this time of the debate,” says Edkins, “and unfortunately it is a debate and not action, it’s appropriate that we have a film that follows the emotional journey of two women who are pregnant and HIV-positive but have access to nevirapine because of a drug trial. To actually follow them as they give birth and find out that their babies turn out negative because of access to the drug highlights a story everybody should know about.”