POV · Season 16 · Episode 9

State of Denial

Tuesday, September 16 · 60 min

State of Denial is a 2003 documentary film about AIDS in Africa, produced and directed by Elaine Epstein. The film highlights the errors of President Mbeki's government, which insists that there isn't enough evidence to show that HIV causes AIDS and refuses vital life-saving drugs to their people because of unknown long-term risks. The film follows the stories of HIV positive Africans and activists as well as their careers, interspersed with the harrowing statistics of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It features various HIV positive patients coping with the disease in times when the use of ARV medicine was strongly discouraged by the South African government. The movie captures the desperation and growing discontent of average South Africans infected and affected by the disease. Some of the subjects interviewed make heartbreaking but inspirational statements about AIDS and how living with it is like.