India West: ‘AIDS JaaGo' Film Project Launched to Raise Awareness

By LUCAS CANTOR

NEW YORK — The AIDS JaaGo Project, which was launched last week with the star power of Mira Nair, is a collection of four vignettes, each about 20 minutes long, that each explore the more personal aspects of HIV/AIDS in India. The films range from melodramatic to slapstick and feature some of Bollywood's top stars in short films by directors Nair, Farhan Akhtar, Santosh Sivan and Vishal Bhardwaj.

At the helm is the award-winning Bollywood/Hollywood producer and director Mira Nair and her production company Mirabai Films.

"The idea was not to create a sober public service announcement that was a chore to watch," Nair told India-West. "We wanted to entertain with top Bollywood stars and dramatic storylines." In all the short films, the characters are surprisingly threedimensional, the storylines engaging, and the cinematography and production nothing less than world class. The second of the four films, "Prarambha," directed by Santosh Sivan and featuring Prabhu Deva, Ramya and Skhandas, is quite hilarious despite its serious subject matter. "Prarambha" is about a small boy who is ostracized from school because he has been infected with the virus.

The films have been seen at major film festivals including IFFI and Dubai, where it screened to acclaim Dec. 12. As a pre-feature public service announcement, the series goes above and beyond the after-school special style edudramas that would usually tackle such a sober topic.

"Mercy Corps partnered with Mirabai films and Breakthrough to advance our shared goal of raising awareness about some of the myths and stigmas that fuel the global pandemic," said Helen Thompson, a press representative for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Mercy Corps.

This non-profit organization, with support from a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant, is dedicated to raising awareness about issues related to hunger and poverty. HIV/AIDS in India is a growing issue that is attracting the attention of an ever-increasing number of major philanthropic organizations. However, some of the deepest pockets in the field require recipients to teach abstinence only in exchange for funding. These policies, in concert with the fog of the taboo surrounding serious public discussion of sex in India, have done little to help stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In a panel discussion after the screening, Shyama Venkatesuar, executive director of Mercy Corps' New York Initiative, stated that the goal was to show the film in as many places as possible in order to raise awareness. In India, where 11 out of 29 states have recently banned sex education and HIV prevention information from schools, promoting awareness through artful storytelling is an important and vital form of activism.

For more information on Mercy Corps, visit their Web site at www.mercycorps.org.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in India West