The Gift

My name is Dani. I've been hearing about your documentary from my peers and the community of HIV prevention and education I work in. So I decided a couple of weeks ago to stay up until 3am and watch your film on the Sundance Channel. I am writing you first and foremost to congratulate you on a very powerful and moving film. I taped it and watched it probably five or six times, crying over this tragic problem in our community. As a health educator, it deeply saddens me and also awakened me to realize that I have to work harder because of this. As a health educator and a registered nurse myself, I firmly believe that this is a very effective and valuable tool we can show and disseminate to the community in general to decrease the incidence of HIV and AIDS not only in the Los Angeles county but everywhere it is needed. Thank you so much for making this film. This film delivers a powerful punch to awaken everybody's senses, to educate without ignorance and fear.

The Gift Documentary is one of the most important documentaries ever filmed. So very little has been done in the age of big medicine to prevent HIV infection. In the United States we do so much spending on end care and forget about prevention. The face of HIV and AIDS is distorted in the messages of pharmaceutical companies. I certainly do not want to preach, so I will just leave this debate to the numbers; The CDC and WHO provide statistics, alarming statistics that are, if flawed in any way, underestimates. This film, for many, could be the only source of HIV infection prevention available when no one is willing to talk about HIV. It provides REALITY.

YOU CANNOT TALK ABOUT THIS SUBJECT TOO MUCH. YOU CANNOT SEE HIS FILM TOO MANY TIMES. YOU CANNOT TELL TOO MANY PEOLE TO WATCH IT.

Knowledge is power and this film provides you with knowledge and something to think about, and talk about, and act upon in any way you know how. I take personal responsibility in doing what I can to talk about this film and its content. I encourage those who read this to view the film and do the same. The film is a responsible film that is about a situation that has an impact on the lives of many people.

See this film and let's get talking!

Gift, The (2003)

*** (out of 4)

Here's an incredibly disturbing and shocking documentary from director Louise Hogarth. My girlfriend and I were talking on the phone and flipping through upcoming films when she read the description of this thing and I couldn't believe it so I recorded the film. The documentary is about a bunch of gay men who are out there hoping to get infected with the HIV virus. The "reasons" were what I was most interested in but some of them want AIDS so that they can have unprotected sex without having to worry about catching it. Some want AIDS because it's the cool thing to do within the gay community. Apparently these people feel AIDS will mean they are "really gay". This is without a doubt one of the most troubling documentaries that I've ever seen because it actually scared the hell out of me. As a straight male I enjoy going out with my friends and picking up women and while I know all about AIDS, this doc scared the living crap out of me because of what these people are talking about. Apparently positive and negative members attend "don't ask, don't tell" sex parties where no condoms are used so they leave these parties not knowing if they are infected or not. Countless other horror stories are covered in this thing, which is truly eye opening even to those who are pretty familiar with all the truths and lies around the disease.

June 6, 2003 New York Times CRITIC'S CHOICE

Forsaking Health to Join the H.I.V. Club By STEPHEN HOLDEN

Doug Hitzel in Louise Hogarth's documentary, "The Gift," part of NewFest 2003: The New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Far and away the most important selection in NewFest 2003: The New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, celebrating its 15th anniversary, is Louise Hogarth's alarming documentary, "The Gift." This film, to be screened at the New York University Cantor Film Center tomorrow evening, examines the increasing ineffectiveness of safer-sex education in urban gay culture and the resulting rise in H.I.V.-infection rates among younger men. The title refers to a small, Internet-fed subculture that romanticizes H.I.V. infection in ritualized initiations known as conversion parties, at which the virus, known as "the gift," is passed to so-called bug-chasers. A subject that could easily have been sensationalized is treated evenhandedly in a film that suggests that in an effort not to offend those who are H.I.V.-positive, AIDS educators have sent out messages that are too vague and timid to register. The misleading ads for drugs that have kept AIDS patients alive show robust, sexy musclemen who seem carefree and asymptomatic. Several men who give and attend large, organized sex parties testify that revealing your H.I.V. status has become an unspoken taboo at such affairs, and that the use of condoms is now optional and in some cases even discouraged. Two young men who deliberately became infected are also interviewed. One is tearfully regretful about his decision, the other relieved because he figures that he has a few more years of good health and freedom from worry before he becomes ill. For the first man, an insecure outsider longing for acceptance, the allure of infection was a feeling of belonging to a club. For the second it was the more nihilistic decision to live for the moment. Reflecting on the shift in attitude is a support group of older AIDS patients, all suffering life-threatening cardiovascular side effects from the medications that are keeping them alive. The tone of their conversation mixes sadness with anger at the degree to which many urban gay men have blinded themselves to an unpleasant truth. The young men seeking "the gift' simply don't know what awaits them. Linda Goode Bryant's documentary "Flag Wars," showing tonight at the Cantor Film Center, takes a hardheaded look at urban gentrification and what happens when a working-class (largely African-American) neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio, becomes a mecca for middle-class lesbian and gay homeowners. As the city declares the neighborhood a historic district, stringent new restrictions force many residents to abandon the neighborhood in which they grew up. This year's festival is more internationalist than ever. Last night's festival-opening film, "Mambo Italiano," has been described as a gay Italian-American "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." The closing-night film (on June 15), "Merci Dr. Rey," is a French farce starring Dianne Wiest as an American opera diva who returns to Paris, where her gay son lives. The protagonist of the Sri Lankan comedy "Flying With One Wing" is a mechanic (married to a woman) who has successfully passed as a man until a doctor, treating an injury, discovers her secret. "Gasoline" suggests an Italian lesbian "Thelma and Louise." "Yossi and Jagger" is the love story of two Israeli soldiers. "Kiki and Tiger," set in Germany on the eve of the war in Kosovo, explores the interplay of sex and politics in the friendship of a gay Serb who falls in love with a straight illegal immigrant from Albania. Whether the setting is Sri Lanka or Israel or Germany, the gay and lesbian characters face variations of the same social pressures, stereotyping and potential violence that they do in the United States.

I say that everyone should see this film at least once in their lifetime because it hits on a number of issues that deserve serious attention from everybody. We can all benefit from what Louise has to say.

People hear about gay men who want to have HIV and AIDS and they automatically assume that they're crazy and should be stayed away from. Or even worse, they think it's some kind of a joke. I approached this topic knowing next to nothing, and by the time the documentary was over, I had tears in my eyes. Louise captured their message and presents it to us loud and clear.

You don't have to be gay to be able to relate their stories to your own. We all feel the pressures that they felt, the fears that they felt, and the hopelessness, and instead of recognizing this, we decide to turn away. But everyone can stand to add a little compassion and understanding to their lives.