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World AIDS Day programming

There was once a time when all our networks would mark World AIDS Day with featured programming.

Wednesday December 1st is World AIDS Day and while there was once a time when all our networks would mark the occasion with featured programming, in recent years it has been left largely to Pay Television.

Even SBS appears to be ignoring it this year.

However ABC2 airs the documentary Love in a Time of HIV. Without having watched this I’m not sure if any of the  3 subjects are gay, which would seem an odd omission given the subject nature. Perhaps the intent is to break stereotypes. In any case everyone should be educated on HIV.

Pay TV also airs a handful of shows, some of which are repeats (listed below).

Update:
12:00am Wednesday Dec 1 TEN (Tuesday night)
MTV Staying Alive Presents: The Diary of Kelly Rowland

Details are: Staying Alive is a series of award winning documentaries, which focus on the experiences of young people from around the world and how each of them is affected by HIV/AIDS. Presented by Kelly Rowland.

Love in a Time of HIV is a documentary about love…and HIV. Through direct and often emotional interviews a new generation of young people reveal how they contracted HIV, how they cope, and the impact it has had on their lives and close relationships.

In the modern world, HIV is no longer the immediate death sentence it once was. But surviving the virus is a struggle – a struggle often worsened by the stigma and misunderstanding of others and complicated by lovers.

At the heart of the three stories in this film is a love story. The English couple trying for a baby, the South African singer’s HIV revelation to her boyfriend, and the American mother and daughter, both HIV positive, and coping with adolescence and exams.

The program travels to London, New York and Johannesburg. Love in a Time of HIV is full of rich characters – there are tears, there are tragedies and, through it all, the power of love. This documentary avoids the tired old tales of woe and, instead, paints a portrait of HIV positive people leading fulfilling lives and finding love. These are stories of the true triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity.

It airs at 8:30pm Wednesday on ABC2.

Wednesday Dec 1.
Discovery Health
2:30pm AIDS: Answers & Breakthroughs. “Ending the Epidemic.”
10:30pm Ashley Judd and Youth AIDS

MTV
11:00pm World AIDs Day: Me Myself and HIV

3 Responses

  1. I thought we’d moved away from thinking that AIDS is a “gay disease”. While it may be that, when AIDS first came to the public’s attention, in the western world (and esp. USA) homosexual men were considered to be the main vector for the spread of the disease, this has not been the case for many years

    The worst-affected parts of the world are sub-Saharan Africa, particularly southern Africa, and south-east Asia. The majority of HIV-infected people in these regions are heterosexual, often sex-workers or their clients, mostly poorly educated, and almost all of lower social status.

  2. there was a review for Love In A Time Of HIV in the Green Guide. I haven’t got the article on hand but from what I recall, the couple wanting a baby were heterosexual. The guy had contracted HIV from a blood transfusion when he was very young.

    With the mother/daughter, I may be corrected but I think the review said the mother contracted HIV from a cheating husband.

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