It’s not over

‘A lot of times, people throw out the term ‘the voice of a generation,’ and I think these three (Lucky, Sarang and Paige) actually represent the real voices of a generation — voices that are demanding real change in how people perceive and react to HIV.’ - Andrew Jenks

“When days are dark, friends are few.” – X

You could call me out on writing this story only because MAC and YStyle go way back, that this is just another feature that’ll soon be forgotten, its lifespan as short as an Instagram post — expired and old news by the end of the day. But to paraphrase Lucky, a South African who took part in a film called It’s Not Over, if we only reach one person and that one person remembers, then one person is enough.

To honor World Aids Day, MAC Cosmetics held a private screening for the documentary directed by Andrew Jenks, an award-winning American filmmaker who took on the ambitious project thinking that he could make the often-tackled subject of HIV relevant to millennials. His journey spans three countries — South Africa, where he meets Lucky, a soccer coach and educator with Grassroot Soccer, an AIDS organization that teaches youth prevention through sports; India, where he meets Sarang, an openly gay, HIV-positive Indian playwright in a country where homosexuality is illegal; and the United States, where he meets Paige, a college freshman in Indiana who was diagnosed with HIV after her third birthday.

It’s a different kind of roadtrip movie. Landscapes are gritty. Conversations are unnervingly personal. In one scene, Jenks asks Paige, who has a boyfriend living in Nebraska, how a person with HIV can have sex without transmitting the disease — and she answers without flinching. It turns out a person without HIV can take medication that will allow him or her to have sexual intercourse with a partner who happens to have the disease without getting infected, provided that the partner is also on continuous medication. Throughout the film, information of this kind is unloaded, but Jenks manages to keep the tone playful — it doesn’t get depressing, though MAC Cosmetics general brand manager Gay Lao-Chen did share that Team MAC, even after having seen the film a dozen times, still couldn’t help but cry at certain scenes (thank goodness for waterproof MAC mascara, right?).

I was particularly moved by a scene filmed in Khayelistsha, a grim township in West Cape where, locals say, eight out of 10 people may be infected with HIV, where Jenks and Lucky visit X who is infected with HIV. They find X chilling on his bed, in a house about the size of a corrupt politician’s shoe rack, with bottles and bottles of pills. “I will eat these pills until the day I die,” X says. His friends have abandoned him since he was diagnosed with the disease and though his eyes remain sad, he tells Jenks and Lucky that he is grateful for the company and what they represent. “When days are dark, friends are few,” X tells them.

#THESTRUGGLEISREAL

In no other context is this phrase more fitting. HIV is an invisible disease that plagues nations, mostly developing ones like ours. It is incurable but there is life-long treatment. Like Paige, a person with HIV can live a life that’s as close to normal as he or she wants, or as extraordinary as he or she allows.

The film talks to millennials without scaring, boring, or alienating them — which is exactly how Jenks wanted it. “For many, HIV/AIDS is an exhausted and ‘stale’ subject; an issue from the ‘80s. Many incredible films that depict HIV+ characters — such as Dallas Buyers Club, The Normal Heart, or We Were There — happen to all take place in the past. When I met with the people at the MAC AIDS Fund, I learned that young people account for over 30 percent of all new infections and that, in certain areas and groups, infections are actually on the rise. It was an opportunity for me to, first, learn, and then second, try to tell this story in a way that hasn’t been done before. I didn’t want people to feel like they were in school being taught what HIV is and what it’s not. That was really the most challenging part for me,” says Jenks.

He worked on the film for a year and a half, consulting with MAC AIDS Fund partners from around the world, looking for HIV+ subjects who are willing to open up about it. “Sarang’s family doesn’t know he is HIV positive, so he will now need to confront that obstacle. Not to mention, he is putting himself out there as an openly gay individual in a country where being gay is illegal. The stigma attached to this disease remains one of its biggest challenges,” he says.

“A lot of times, people throw out the term ‘the voice of a generation,’ and I think these three (Lucky, Sarang and Paige) actually represent the real voices of a generation — voices that are demanding real change in how people perceive and react to HIV. They’re all creating awareness in different ways,” he adds.

Paige, the youngest of the three subjects, sums it up pretty well: “Sarang, Lucky and I are three very different people with one similar message: HIV does not define us. In the beginning, HIV was a death sentence. Today I want people to see that we’re just like everyone else, living normal lives.” The film delivers an encouraging thought: we live in dark times, but we are among friends.

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It's Not Over is available on Netflix in the US and will be downloadable on iTunes in the Philippines on June 2015. MAC AIDS Fund raises funds exclusively through the sale of MAC’s Viva Glam Lipstick and Lipglass. MAC donates 100 percent of the sale price to fight the AIDS epidemic and has raised more than $340 million to date. For information, visit www.macaidsfund.org.