University of London

University of London

University of London Study Gives

GFF Documentary Critical Acclaim

Morten Lynge Madsen, a masters student in media and communications at the University of London, recently completed his masters thesis analysing the role of the media in the changing perception of AIDS in South Africa. Madsen's thesis focused on three "actors": the South African government, the SABC and Global Focus Films, specifically GFF's documentary, "Not My Child: AIDS in South Africa."

Excerpts from his thesis include:

The two main themes of the film are the events taking place around the Durban AIDS Conference and the way in which local communities are affected by and respond to the AIDS crisis. Documenting the parades where people with AIDS disclosed their HIV status despite the risk of stigma and the demonstrations against the international pharmaceutical companies, the film positions itself on the side of the subordinate against global capitalism and western medical hegemony. Made to create awareness and provoke a reaction, this visual representation of AIDS in South Africa is constructed very consciously to shape public opinion. The film is meant to reach people emotionally with a clear referential axis--documenting the AIDS Conference and life in the communities in the shadows of AIDS--and a strong poetic axis. The poetic axis is most clearly expressed in the opening sequence showing images of children while the word "AIDS" flashes on the screen and in a shot of a group of children playing under a monument formed as a giant red AIDS ribbon.

This film transmits its images of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa to a potentially global audience, not particularly a South African one. It does not as much attempt to change the perception of AIDS and prevent stigmatisation and discrimination in South Africa as it intends to influence the internatoinal opinion on the AIDS crisis.

An important sequence of the film describes the controversy over the absence of 'traditional healers' on the conference. The narrator explains how even as 80 percent of the South African population frequents healers, their views are not taken serious and their potential for AIDS prevention ignored. With a striking use of editing and voice-over the film situates itself powerfully in the debate about the positive role of traditional healers as a form of translators and distributors of information about AIDS...The sequence cuts from an image of a traditional healer, a black middle-aged woman in traditional costume, smiling and talking in bright sunlight to a grey-filtered half-frame of a mouth, a just visible white lab coat and a microphone--a representative of the predominantly white scientific community.



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		University of London



	University of London Study Gives GFF Documentary Critical Acclaim Morten Lynge Madsen, a masters student in media and communications at the University of London, recently completed his masters thesis analysing the role of the media in the changing perception of AIDS in South Africa. Madsen's thesis focused on three "actors": the South African government, the SABC and Global Focus Films, specifically GFF's documentary, "Not My Child: AIDS in South Africa." Excerpts from his thesis include: The two main themes of the film are the events taking place around the Durban AIDS Conference and the way in which local communities are affected by and respond to the AIDS crisis. Documenting the parades where people with AIDS disclosed their HIV status despite the risk of stigma and the demonstrations against the international pharmaceutical companies, the film positions itself on the side of the subordinate against global capitalism and western medical hegemony. Made to create awareness and provoke a reaction, this visual representation of AIDS in South Africa is constructed very consciously to shape public opinion. The film is meant to reach people emotionally with a clear referential axis--documenting the AIDS Conference and life in the communities in the shadows of AIDS--and a strong poetic axis. The poetic axis is most clearly expressed in the opening sequence showing images of children while the word "AIDS" flashes on the screen and in a shot of a group of children playing under a monument formed as a giant red AIDS ribbon. This film transmits its images of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa to a potentially global audience, not particularly a South African one. It does not as much attempt to change the perception of AIDS and prevent stigmatisation and discrimination in South Africa as it intends to influence the internatoinal opinion on the AIDS crisis. An important sequence of the film describes the controversy over the absence of 'traditional healers' on the conference. The narrator explains how even as 80 percent of the South African population frequents healers, their views are not taken serious and their potential for AIDS prevention ignored. With a striking use of editing and voice-over the film situates itself powerfully in the debate about the positive role of traditional healers as a form of translators and distributors of information about AIDS...The sequence cuts from an image of a traditional healer, a black middle-aged woman in traditional costume, smiling and talking in bright sunlight to a grey-filtered half-frame of a mouth, a just visible white lab coat and a microphone--a representative of the predominantly white scientific community.