STEPS FOR THE FUTURE

Steps for the Future
A 25 cassette series on AIDS in Southern Africa. Additional information about this series is on the web at the project's site and on California Newsreel's site.

Volume 1: Wa 'N Wina: Filmmaker Dumisani Phakathi returns to his old neighborhood. With a camera on his shoulder, he engages with friends to discuss relationships, sex and love. Strong characters like Phumla and Timothy expose their emotions as they talk intimately about the realities of their street and the choices they have been forced to make. It 's a rock and roll journey that reveals the gaps between everyday life and the AIDS education campaigns that often talk past the very people they are supposed to address. It is the recognition of the people's will to survive in the age of AIDS.
Volume 2: Simon and I: Simon and I recounts the lives of two giants in the South African gay and lesbian liberation movement, Simon Nkoli and the film maker herself, Bev Ditsie. The story is narrated by Bev, both as a personal statement and a political history. Through good times and bad, their relationship is viewed against a backdrop of intense political activism and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Their converging and diverging lives, culminating in Simon 's death, are revealed in this heartfelt testament using a mixed format of interviews and archive footage.
Volume 3: Looking for Busi: Here is the incredible story of a fifteen-year-old 's journey to take control of her life. Abandoned by her mother when she becomes pregnant, even before testing positive for HIV, she must depend on the help of extended family and friends. Life starts to look up when Busi is chosen both for a mother-to-child drug trial and to be the subject of a TV documentary. But after the television program is aired on South African TV exposing her HIV status to the world, she disappears. Desperately worried, the filmmaker and her best friend go looking for her.
Volume 4: Body and Soul: HIV/AIDS is forcing religious leaders to reassess their traditional attitudes about sexuality in a country where 90% of the population claim one sort of religious affiliation or another. During the struggle against apartheid the churches played a leading role in the fight for freedom. Today millions of people are in a desperate situation because of HIV/AIDS. What role do the clergy play in this new struggle for human rights? Body and Soul looks at the attitudes of three main religions in South Africa through people on the ground who have to interpret and practice religion in terms of today 's realities.
Volume 5: Night Stop: In central Mozambique lies the Corridor of Death, a long-distance trucking route, where more than 30% of the population are HIV+. Shot mostly at night, the film charts a series of interwoven stories about the lives of women who wait for the arrival of truck drivers at an overnight trucking station. Three groups of sex workers, the Calamities, the Students and the Founding Members, vie for business, disappearing into the drivers' trucks, which are cheaper than renting rooms. In this world, even though condoms are distributed free by activists, you can earn more by having unprotected sex.
Volume 6: Dancing on the Edge: Dancing on the Edge is set in rural Mozambique, where traditional gender roles and poverty influence the fight to contain the spread of AIDS. Antonietta is HIV-positive and works as an AIDS counselor in the city. But she takes her one healthy daughter to a remote village for initiation into sexuality. After a week of rituals and lessons on how to please a man, the daughter will become a woman and consequently be put at risk to contract HIV. Antonietta struggles with the contradictions of maintaining traditional customs while adapting to the reality of the modern world.
Volume 7: A Miner's Tale: Joachim is a migrant laborer who is torn between his responsibilities for his junior wife in South Africa and his senior wife and family in Mozambique. When visiting his home village after a long absence, he is also torn between his understanding of the responsibilities of his HIV status and what traditional society expects of him as a man. He has to make a choice: he cannot please and protect everybody at the same time. The elders are adamant that Joaquim must do his traditional duty and give his wife more children. What will he choose?
Volume 8: Mother to Child: The prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV - the statistics, the people - come vividly to life in this astounding documentary, which follows the lives of two pregnant and HIV-positive women lucky enough to be on a drug trial at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. The film charts the lives of Pinkie and Patience as they approach the delivery of their babies. It reveals their exceptions, hopes, and inevitable fears concerning not only the health of their babies, but the trauma around the disclosure of their status to their families and partners as well.
Volume 9: Eclipse: Eclipse is a dreamlike documentary depicting the total blackout of four girls' lives, eclipsed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is a story about four sisters, Laura, Enguinesse, Fatima and Luisa -the oldest sixteen and the youngest nine. They are AIDS orphans living in the Mozambican town of Chimoio. Their mother died of AIDS and their father disappeared, probably to commit suicide in a nearby place of spirits. The film documents the girls' day to day struggle as they try to make ends meet by re-selling produce they have bought from the market.
Volume 10: A Fighting Spirit: A national hero turns public enemy when he confesses his tragic secret. Gilbert Josamu, Zimbabwean middle-weight boxing champion, discovered he was HIV-positive at the height of his career. Living in a society where HIV/AIDS is taboo, Josamu forged his medical certificate and continued to pursue his career. Just months before he died, Josamu finally confessed to having lived with HIV for 14 years. The public outrage that followed forced him into his toughest fight yet -the battle for acceptance. This is a story told by those who are still alive.
Volume 11: Imiti Ikula: Memory is one of the 75, 000 street kids in Lusaka, most of them orphans due to AIDS. Although she is hard, streetwise and ready to fight, she has a softer side which influences her daily living, like finding a way to watch the solar eclipse, getting her hair braided, cooking, singing and talking with her friends. She is a street child who fights for -and finds - her own identity and destiny. Vulnerable, yet strong, Memory is a compelling character.
Volume 12: Love in a Time of Sickness: At a boisterous and urbane dinner party, Khalo Matabane recounts to his friends an apparently innocent story about how he met a beautiful woman, flirted with her and started dating her. When the woman discloses her HIV status, Khalo does not see her again. The story is intercut with Khalo's examination of his own sexual history, brought up in a household of women. This film is an honest account of how the already complex nature of relating takes on new meaning in a time of sickness.
Volume 13: A Red Ribbon Around My House: A mother and daughter are in crisis because of their different responses to AIDS. Pinky, flamboyant and loud, lets everyone know she is HIV-positive. But her daughter, Ntombi, is battling to be just like everyone else. Her mother's courageous and touching refusal to be quiet or passive in the face of AIDS, sets them apart. Pinky acknowledges the difficulties her openness poses for her daughter, but makes no apology. Throughout it all, her sense of humor about life are apparent. We leave the film with Pinky doing what she does best -living.
Volume 14: A Luta Continua: "HIV is not a death sentence!" say the HIV+ group from Khayelitsha. They tell their stories in a series of short films which are then screened at taxi stands and shopping malls in Cape Town's townships. This powerful film about courage in the face of death includes footage of the group process, the short films themselves and their public screenings. Although they were too young to be part of the struggle against apartheid, they face a new struggle in their lifetime. They decide to call the film A Luta Continua - the struggle continues.
Volume 15: Heavy Traffic: Shot in Soweto, Heavy Traffic shows the lives of two very different funeral parlor operators and the people who work for them. We meet Caps Pooney, who has been in the business for 50 years, and Lulu Somthumsi-Mabusela, the boss of one of many smaller operations which have proliferated in the wake of the AIDS pandemic. Uncle Caps, Lulu and their employees experience a busy week of cleaning bodies and looking for more business. Then comes Saturday and at the cemetery traffic is heavy. After each funeral, both our parties move fast. There is another body to fetch and bury.
Volume 16: House of Love: Surrounded by vast expanses of desert and sea, the small Namibian harbor of Walvis Bay is the unlikely setting in which filmmaker Cecil Moller explores the lives of sex-workers. Dependent for their business on the brief visits of foreign shipping trawlers to this remote port, he women give revealing insights into the choices they have made and why they have made them. Their conflicts to do with notions of love, sex, sin and redemption become the main themes, while the threat of HIV/AIDS hangs ominously in the background.
Volume 17: Master Positive and Not Afraid: Master Positive
by Kelly Kowalski, 8 minutes
Master Positive makes cheap coffins for the poor. It's a new business, but he thinks there's a viable market considering Namibia's growing AIDS-related deaths. This short film follows Master Positive as he constructs a prototype papier-mache coffin and makes his first sale. Dealing with death in his job and confronting his own HIV status, Master Positive explains through humor and courage how he has become a true master of positive living.; Not Afraid
by Carla Hoffmann, 7 minutes
Cathy, who is from Namibia, relates her experience as an HIV+ mother who lost her baby due to lack of access to treatment. Her message to other HIV+ women is cautionary, yet life affirming:"I'm still a human being, I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm myself. I can still use my hands and feet." Not afraid of death, Cathy is an inspiration for life.
Volume 18: Guilty and The Moment: Guilty
by Francois Verster, 15 minutes
A short experimental film that looks at issues of blame, fidelity, denial and guilt within the AIDS context. Starting with one HIV+ couple, it follows the path of sexual encounters branching ever outward. In this maze of relationships the inevitable question of responsibility becomes blurred.; The Moment
by Siyabonga Makhatini, 8 minutes
It is the moment just before penetration...People from different backgrounds share their most personal thoughts about courtship and sexual behavior in this funny and honest film.
Volume 19: Dreams of a Good Life and Gotta Give: Dreams of a Good Life
by Bridget Pickering, 15 minutes
A film of laughter, fear, and the solace of sharing. Five women talk about life, love and how their dreams for the future have changed since finding out they are HIV positive. The women now examine their relationships with men more openly than ever before. A film with and about HIV+ women.; Gotta Give
by Eddie Edwards, 5 minutes
A music video featuring Moodphase 5ive and Godessa with a message for young women: take control and use your power to negotiate your relationships. This upbeat film uses a popular form to promote the empowerment of female identity.
Volume 20: Ndodii and Big Balls: Ndodii
by Farai Matambidzanwa, 13 minutes
Ndodii is set in a remote village in Zimbabwe, the film depicts the impact of HIV/AIDS on the traditional practice of wife inheritance. Mai Tawanda, an HIV+ widow, is instructed by her elders to choose a new husband. Faced with the reality of being ostracized and blamed for her husband's death, she is challenged with the choice of breaking tradition.; Big Balls
by Heeten Bhagat, 4 minutes
Two men are at work. One is black and the other white. They are building something together. But there is tension. Their conversation is raw, peppered with innuendo and tales of supposed conquests. As they talk they spar with words. Words that mean so little, but say so much. Funny yet devastatingly cruel. It becomes clear that those conquests will ultimately be their demise...
Volume 21: Ho Ea Rona and Tsoga: Ho Ea Rona
(We Are Going Forward)
by Dumisani Phakathi, Sesotho Media, 17 minutes, Lesotho
Ho Ea Rona (We Are Going Forward) is a short film about four friends: Thabiso was a national boxer; Thabo, known to his friends as Kwasa Kwasa, is a DJ; Bimbo, a true intellectual, is a man of short sentences; and Moalosi an AIDS activist. All four are HIV+. They meet to reflect on their lives, to cry, to reminisce - but also, most importantly, to laugh.; Tsoga
by Sechaba Ramotoai, 8 minutes, South Africa
A Soweto school made headlines after 70% of their students were reported to have tested HIV+. Ignorance and fear became the agents for discrimination. Years later, Joyce, an ex-student shares her experiences of being raped as a young girl and suffering discrimination after testing HIV positive. Having overcome the challenges posed by her HIV status, she provides a source of guidance and encouragement.
Volume 22: Let's Talk About It and Dispel Your Attitudes: Let's Talk About It
by Sithunyiwe Gece, 8 minutes
The film reflects prevailing attitudes towards HIV/AIDS in the townships of Cape Town by a filmmaker who lives there. It looks at young peoples' perceptions of HIV/AIDS and the challenges they face in practicing safer sex.; Dispel Your Attitudes
by Lizo Kalipa, 8 minutes
Philiswa is an HIV positive woman and an AIDS activist. She fearlessly discusses the virus in a taxi ride to meet Mr. X, an HIV positive man afraid to disclose his status. He starts to explore his fears when the two meet.
Volume 23: That's Me and Choose Life: That's Me
by Sasha Wales-Smith, 7 minutes, Zimbabwe
In Zimbabwe President Mugabe has said that gay people are "worse than pigs or dogs". To be HIV positive on top of that is even more shameful in the eyes of society. Acceptance is the theme of this inspiring film about a young drag queen. Life with HIV can still be celebrated, he tells us, as long as you acknowledge sexuality and love the virus.; Choose Life
by Dorothy Brislin Ntone, 4 minutes, Mozambique
In this exuberant music video Kapa Dech, one of the best-known Mozambican bands, uses the funeral of a young man who has died of AIDS to get across their message of hope. Dressed in white, the dead man rises from the grave and tells the survivors that while they should certainly cherish and enjoy life, they also need to act responsibly in the face of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Volume 24: The Ball and The Sky in Her Eyes: The Ball
by Orlando Mesquita, 5 minutes, Mozambique
Somewhere on a dusty soccer field in Mozambique, a group of boys are playing a game of soccer. Suddenly a man runs onto the field shouting. He stops the game and accuses the boys of stealing his condoms. There are different ways to use condoms. In Mozambique, young boys are great consumers of them, turning them into soccer balls.; The Sky in Her Eyes
by Ouida Smit and Madoda Ncayiyana, 11 minutes, South Africa
Set in rural KwaZulu Natal, this poignant short film shows a young girl struggling to cope with her grief and confusion after losing her mother to AIDS. When a boy allows her to attach a picture she has drawn of her mother to his kite, this act of friendship and the shared joy of flying a kite together make the girl smile again.
Volume 25: True Friends: A trilogy of short films using hand-made animal puppets to dramatize different issues around HIV/AIDS, making them easily accessible to young children 5 to 8 years old.; True Friends
7 minutes
As the gossip spreads that Gazelle is HIV positive, her best friend Zebra gets upset and expels her from the lakeside. When the wise tortoise finds her alone and weeping, she stands up for Gazelle and calls upon the other animals to reaccept her.; The Razor Blade
7 minutes
When Lion is suffering from asthma, Aida, the hippo, takes her friend to Auntie, who is a sangoma. Lion is scared to death of the treatment and Aida jokes around with him. But Auntie knows how to treat asthma and how to prevent AIDS while treating her patients.; Little Soldiers
7 minutes
Hippo had heard shooting during the night, and the friends fear that poachers have returned. But Lion fears this new disease called AIDS even more, as he does not understand it. Tortoise explains, describing how white blood cells and the virus work in the body.