By Amber Roberts, Black Ink Guest Writer
CHAPEL HILL– “Over 35,000 North Carolinians are living with HIV/AIDS,” says 24-year-old filmmaker Julian Wooten. “And ignoring it does not make it go away.”
A graduate student in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at UNC-CH, Wooten is making the documentary “Heart to HAART: The State of the HIV/AIDS Movement.” HAART stands for Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy and is a drug combination treatment for the disease.
“There is going to be something for everyone in this documentary,” Wooten says. The documentary is scheduled to premiere Dec. 1 for World AIDS Day and will have a heavy focus on the disease in North Carolina.
Wooten says filming the documentary has been an idea of his for years. “I believe the timing of things happens at the right time.” He was inspired by his grandfather to make the documentary. Wooten says that when he was younger he use to go to a nursing home with his grandfather to visit people who were sick. His grandfather used to tell him that people are people regardless of race, age or sexual orientation. “All I do, I dedicate to him and his influence,” Wooten says. “His legacy of philanthropy and helping others lives on in this work.”
Wooten wants people to see the documentary because he wants to affect individual behavior. “We aren’t chasing awards,” Wooten says. “Stopping how many people get infected is the reward, and there is no price on that.”
The documentary will consist of three main parts: people, policy and education. Wooten explores the people of North Carolina who have HIV/AIDS and the impact it has on their lives. He also discusses political aspects of the disease and will educate people on the history, transmission and prevention of the disease.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 1.7 million people in the United States were infected with HIV in 2009. Every nine and a half minutes, someone else becomes infected.
Wooten works with a small production company in Winston-Salem called Tough Spun Studios. Producing the documentary “is not cheap,” he says. The documentary is estimated to cost $49,000.
Wooten feels that the issue of HIV/AIDS is important to everyone. “This is not a passive thing,” he says. He says AIDS is a national security risk and an economic problem because it raises health-care costs. “The greater number of people infected, the greater the risk.”
The documentary has received support from various groups. The North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition serves as the fiscal agent for the documentary. Alliance of AIDS Services–Carolina and UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases contribute to the documentary by giving interviews and helping to publicize.
Dr. Peter Leone, medical director of the UNC Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases, applauds Wooten for “directing the idea for the video, putting the concept together and looking for funding.” Wooten says he spends about 80 hours a week working on the documentary without compensation. Like Wooten, Leone is optimistic about the message the documentary will convey.
“I hope it raises awareness of the ongoing extent of the North Carolina HIV epidemic and brings attention to the need for a more systemic fix in health-care provisions and medications for HIV,” Leone says.
Leone feels that the topic of HIV/AIDS is important because it is an epidemic that is preventable: “We can prevent transmission of HIV if we begin to treat this as a chronic disease that should be treated with medications and by addressing the underlying contextual factors that have made this a stigmatized disease affecting marginalized populations.”
In five years Wooten hopes to have part two of the documentary released. He says everything changes a great deal in a short period of time, such as the “therapeutics, policies and the stigmas.”
Wooten believes that everyone can take part in helping to combat the disease. On an individual level, Wooten says to practice protection by using condoms and limiting the number of partners you have.
On the government level, Wooten says that there needs to be a lot more “accurate publicity and awareness.” He feels that “changing the natural model from a treatment model to a preventive model” is the smartest way to approach the HIV/AIDS issue. Wooten is shocked at the “simple things” that can be done to make a difference, such as education and making resources available.
“I didn’t realize how ubiquitous it was,” Wooten says. “There are a lot of people living with HIV/AIDS every day. People want you to speak to them and for them.”
The documentary will show in various locations in the Triangle area, times and locations will be announced closer to the film’s début. “It’s not just a documentary, it’s an experience,” Wooten says.
