Screening of film on HIV / AIDS at Long Island City

Award winning film 68 Pages screens at Long island on December 1 as part of the FRAMING AIDS 2008 -Queens Annual Observance of World AIDS Day- Screening held at La Guardia Performing Arts Center, Little Thealter, La Guardia Community College.


68 Pages
Marked by Pain, Bound by Hope
2007 / 92 mins / Hindi with Eng subtitles
Link to site - Amazon

Film outline
From the director of Gulabi Aaina and Yours Emotionally comes another hard hitting drama about marginalized people. Subverting the Bollywood film genre of song-dance and high drama, this film places characters ignored by Bollywood centerstage - a transsexual bar dancer, a prostitute, a gay couple - to tell their stories of pain and trauma, of happiness and hope, about being HIV+ and marginalized. A searingly honest film about five lives marked by pain and bound by hope - in 68 Pages of a counselor's diary.

Winner of the Silver Remi at the WorldFest 2008, Houston, USA

Directed by Sridhar Rangayan
Produced by The Humsafar Trust in association with Solaris Pictures

In India everyone still think HIV and AIDS as taboo subjects or as an issue that needs abject pity and sympathy.
68 Pages shows HIV+ as stigmatized & marginalized by society, but as people who have the courage to stand up and fight, to live their life with dignity and look forward to a future with hope. The film primarily meant for grass root level audiences in India has been received very well in more than 100 screenings. It has screened at more than 12 international film festivals and won the Silver Remi award at Worldfest-Houston 2008.

Having not able to find mainstream distribution, (because they think HIV/AIDS is not money-making), the producers adopted innovative ways to reach to the grassroots through a funding from HIVOS, taking it to 15 cities across India, and to some small towns where neither HIV or homosexuality has ever been discussed before. The film has also been adopted by the Government's nodal AIDS agency - National AIDS Control Organization to be used as resource material in every counselor training programs across the country.

During the coming World AIDS Week, there are more than 15 screenings planned in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, etc. apart from being screened on December 1 at Long Island by QMAD as part of their Framing AIDS events.

Check out the official website www.framingaids.us for details.