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A film by Javier Echaverria,
Video Eon, Cuba, 1995.
CUBA'S system for treating HIV and AIDS comes under the spotlight in this film by Cuba's first ever independent film production company.
Video Eon is the brainchild of Javier Echevarria and Eddie Leiva, who
set it up using their own resources and which has produced two
documentaries to date
"Vencer por la vida" is the first and presents an inside view of how
the sanatorium system works using interviews with patients, their
parents and doctors. What is clear is that the film bursts through
the propaganda surrounding the treatment of HIV positive patients and
presents a very objective view of the current state of affairs.
Now Cuba has adopted what they call an ambulatory approach to the
disease which means that increasingly patients to live at home and
commute to the centres for treatment. It has also
de-institutionalised life inside the sanitoria so that patients can
have their own apartments and cook and clean for themselves if they
choose.
The director of the Santiago de las Vegas santiorium, Dr Jorge Perez
Avila, led this change. He appears in the film to defend Cuba's
system as having led to them being able to prevent many deaths. The
figure for the number of people to have died in Cuba as a result of
AIDS is remarkably low. This is because of the attention that HIV
positive patients receive. Their treatment includes sessions with
psychologists aimed at instilling a positive attitude. "What kills is
not so much the virus as the psychosis and we must struggle against
it," he says.
In another way, this film is also about the other psychosis that
surrounds AIDS in Cuba: that which paints a picture of Cuba as a
place where HIV positive people are sequestrated away from the world
and somehow denied their rights. The truth is actually the
reverse.
When presenting this film, Javier Echevarria, 33, said he had made it
to spread the "only vaccine we have against HIV" and that, he said,
"is knowledge." It is a pity that Video Eon, as yet a tiny
underfunded outfit, is struggling to produce a subtitled version of
this film. It would be of great use to the campaign in our struggle
to bring the real Cuba to light in the world.
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