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Bollywood plots Aids message
23/01/2007 15:57 - (SA)
Kamil Zaheer
New Delhi - Four top Bollywood directors are to make short films dealing with HIV/Aids that will be shown before blockbuster releases, hoping to use their stars' pulling power to spread awareness of the deadly virus in India.
The low-budget, 12-minute movies will be shown at theatres
ahead of full-length commercial Bollywood films that star
well-known actors, said Mira Nair, the India-born director of
Mississippi Masala and the sensuous hit Kama Sutra, on Monday.
"The idea is to piggyback on blockbusters to spread Aids
awareness," Nair said at a news conference in a country that
has the world's largest population living with the deadly
virus.
"We want to use cinema (against Aids) so that it holds a
mirror to the world and gets under your skin."
The movies will be funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation which is spending $258m on HIV prevention
efforts in India over a five-year period.
'We do not want to preach but entertain'
Nair, who is making one of the 12-minute films which will
be titled Migration, said she had been unable to get A-list
Bollywood actors to feature in the films on Aids.
"Lots of stars don't want to be associated with the virus,"
the feisty director said, adding: "Some live and don't learn."
The other directors involved in the venture are Santosh
Sivan, who directed the critically acclaimed The Terrorist,
Farhan Akthar, who made the box office hit Dil Chahta Hai
(What the Heart Wants), and Vishal Bhardwaj who made Omkara - a Bollywood take on William Shakespeare's Othello.
"We do not want to preach but entertain. Once you start
preaching and teaching, people get bored," Bhardwaj said.
The directors are hoping the movies will be released in
cinemas within a few months, and Nair said the initial response
from distributors had been positive.
Two of the short movies would be in Hindi while the other
two would be in south Indian languages like Tamil, a press
statement about the Aids Jaggo (Wake up to Aids) initiative
said.
Stigma and prejudice is widespread
According to Unaids, India has 5.7 million people living
with HIV/Aids and stigma and prejudice is widespread.
Many people, including some federal lawmakers, believe that
a person can get HIV by shaking hands with an infected person,
surveys have shown.
In recent years, Bollywood has made two full-length movies
on HIV/Aids. Neither was a commercial success.
- Reuters
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South Africa
