Fig Trees

Last updated
Fig Trees
Directed by John Greyson
Written byJohn Greyson
Produced byJohn Greyson
Cinematography Ali Kazimi
Edited by Jared Raab
Music by David Wall
Production
company
Greyzone
Release date
Running time
104 minutes
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Fig Trees is a 2009 Canadian operatic documentary film written and directed by John Greyson. It follows South African AIDS activist Zackie Achmat and Canadian AIDS activist Tim McCaskell as they fight for access to treatment for HIV/AIDS. It was also inspired by Gertrude Stein and Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints in Three Acts . The film premiered at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Teddy Award for Best Documentary.

Contents

Background

Zackie Achmat is a South African HIV-positive activist who founded the Treatment Action Campaign in 1998. The organization focuses on access to drug treatment for HIV/AIDS patients who cannot afford private health care. Achmat refused to take medication himself until the South African government made antiretroviral treatments available through public sector hospitals. Tim McCaskell is a Canadian activist who founded the AIDS Action Now! organization, and has campaigned for better access to treatment. [1]

Director John Greyson has been involved in AIDS activism since the 1980s. In 2001, he and musician David Wall had the idea to write an opera about Achmat's treatment strike after a piece on him appeared in The New York Times . [2] The work originally took the form of an eight-part video installation. [3] It was inspired by the 1920s opera Four Saints in Three Acts by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein. [2]

Content

The film features documentary footage and interviews with Achmat and McCaskell, as well as Gugu Dlamini, Stephen Lewis, Simon Nkoli, interspersed with operatic performances. [1] [2] Fictional elements feature Gertrude Stein writing an opera about Achmat and McCaskell. [4] It is narrated by a singing albino squirrel. [2]

Release and reception

Fig Trees premiered at the 59th Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale) on February 9, 2009. [5] It had been accepted as a rough cut and finished shortly before the festival. [6] It went on to play at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival in Toronto, the Seattle International Film Festival, Outfest, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the Paris Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Watch Docs Film Festival in Poland and the Hamburg Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. It won the Teddy Award for Best Documentary at Berlinale, [7] the Jury Prize at the Hamburg Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and the award for Best Canadian Film or Video at the Inside Out Film and Video Festival.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ACT UP</span> International AIDS activism, direct action and advocacy group

AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, and working to change legislation and public policies.

<i>Zero Patience</i> 1993 musical Canadian film by John Greyson

Zero Patience is a 1993 Canadian musical film written and directed by John Greyson. The film examines and refutes the urban legend of the alleged introduction of HIV to North America by a single individual, Gaëtan Dugas. Dugas, better known as Patient Zero, was the target of blame in the popular imagination in the 1980's in large measure because of Randy Shilts's American television film docudrama, And the Band Played On (1987), a history of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Zero Patience tells its story against the backdrop of a romance between a time-displaced Sir Richard Francis Burton and the ghost of "Zero".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Treatment Action Campaign</span> South African HIV/AIDS activist organization

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) is a South African HIV/AIDS activist organisation which was co-founded by the HIV-positive activist Zackie Achmat in 1998. TAC is rooted in the experiences, direct action tactics and anti-apartheid background of its founder. TAC has been credited with forcing the reluctant government of former South African President Thabo Mbeki to begin making antiretroviral drugs available to South Africans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pieter-Dirk Uys</span> South African comedian (born 1945)

Pieter-Dirk Uys is a South African performer, author, satirist, and social activist. One of his best known roles is as Evita Bezuidenhout, an Afrikaner socialite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zackie Achmat</span> South African activist and film director

Abdurrazack "Zackie" Achmat is a South African activist and film director. He is a co-founder the Treatment Action Campaign and known worldwide for his activism on behalf of people living with HIV and AIDS in South Africa. He currently serves as board member and co-director of Ndifuna Ukwazi, an organisation which aims to build and support social justice organisations and leaders, and is the chairperson of Equal Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Greyson</span> Canadian filmmaker

John Greyson is a Canadian director, writer, video artist, producer, and political activist, whose work frequently deals with queer characters and themes. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The ArQuives</span> Canadian organization that preserves historical LGBT materials

The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives, formerly known as the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, is a Canadian non-profit organization, founded in 1973 as the Canadian Gay Liberation Movement Archives. The ArQuives acquires, preserves, and provides public access to material and information by and about lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and two-spirit communities primarily in Canada.

State of Denial is a 2003 documentary film about AIDS in Africa, produced and directed by Elaine Epstein. The film highlights the errors of President Mbeki's government, which insists that there isn't enough evidence to show that HIV causes AIDS and refuses vital life-saving drugs to their people because of unknown long-term risks. The film follows the stories of HIV positive Africans and activists as well as their careers, interspersed with the harrowing statistics of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It features various HIV positive patients coping with the disease in times when the use of ARV medicine was strongly discouraged by the South African government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosa von Praunheim</span> German film director

Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky, known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films. His works influenced the development of LGBTQ+ rights movements worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vito Russo</span> American historian and LGBT activist

Vito Russo was an American LGBT activist, film historian, and author. He is best remembered as the author of the book The Celluloid Closet, described in The New York Times as "an essential reference book" on homosexuality in the US film industry. In 1985, he co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), a media watchdog organization that strives to end anti-LGBT rhetoric, and advocates for LGBT inclusion in popular media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Nkoli</span> South African gay rights, AIDS, and anti-apartheid activist

Simon Tseko Nkoli was an anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist in South Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sridhar Rangayan</span> Indian filmmaker (born 1962)

Sridhar Rangayan is an Indian filmmaker who has made films with special focus on queer subjects. His queer films, The Pink Mirror and Yours Emotionally, have been considered groundbreaking because of their realistic and sympathetic portrayal of the largely closeted Indian gay community. His film The Pink Mirror remains banned in India by the Indian Censor Board because of its homosexual content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Teddy Award</span> LGBT film award of the Berlin International Film Festival

The Teddy Award is an international film award for films with LGBT topics, presented by an independent jury as an official award of the Berlin International Film Festival. For the most part, the jury consists of organisers of gay and lesbian film festivals, who view films screened in all sections of the Berlinale; films do not have to have been part of the festival's official competition stream to be eligible for Teddy awards. Subsequently, a list of films meeting criteria for LGBT content is selected by the jury, and a 3,000-Euro Teddy is awarded to a feature film, a short film and a documentary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sing (Annie Lennox song)</span> 2007 single by Annie Lennox featuring Various artists

"Sing" is a song recorded by Scottish singer Annie Lennox for her fourth solo studio album, Songs of Mass Destruction (2007). It was released as the second single from the album on 1 December 2007 by RCA Records. Lennox was inspired to write the track after seeing South African activist Zackie Achmat at Nelson Mandela's 46664 HIV/AIDS concert. She wanted the track to be a source of empowerment for people without a voice of their own. It also gave rise to her SING Campaign which aimed to raise funds and awareness for issues surrounding HIV/AIDS. "Sing" was produced by Glen Ballard and interpolates the South African tune "Jikelele"; the music was given to Lennox by an activist group called The Generics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Fung</span>

Richard Fung is a video artist, writer, public intellectual and theorist who currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and is openly gay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Side by Side (film festival)</span> Annual international film festival in Saint Petersburg, Russia

"Side by Side" Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival is an international film festival that seeks to explore the issues of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgender (LGBT) through art cinema. Since 2008 it has taken place every autumn in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In addition, various special events are held almost every month, and since 2009 film showings and discussions have also been conducted in other parts of Russia.

Steven Markovitz is a South African film and television producer. He has produced, co-produced and executive-produced features, documentaries and short films. Steven has been producing and distributing for over 20 years. Since 2007, he has worked all over Africa producing documentary series' and fiction. He is a member of AMPAS, co-founder of Electric South & Encounters Documentary Festival and the founder of the African Screen Network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Gund</span> Australian-American film director

Catherine Gund is an American producer, director, and writer who founded Aubin Pictures in 1996.

DiAna DiAna is an American hairdresser and HIV/AIDS activist from Columbia, South Carolina. Her work in the field of HIV/AIDS and basic sex education was featured in the 1989 documentary film Diana's Hair Ego.

Taghmeda Achmat, commonly known as Midi Achmat, is one of South Africa's most well known lesbian activists. Achmat co-founded the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) with her partner and fellow activist Theresa Raizenberg on 10 December 1998.

References

  1. 1 2 "Fig Trees", Mix 22 , Clear Channel Communications, November 11–22, 2009, retrieved April 23, 2010
  2. 1 2 3 4 "John Greyson opera Fig Trees tackles AIDS activism", CBC News , Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, May 21, 2009, archived from the original on 2009-05-24, retrieved April 23, 2010
  3. Melnyk, George (2007). Great Canadian Film Directors. University of Alberta. p. 142. ISBN   978-0-88864-479-4.
  4. Deming, Mark, "Fig Trees > Plot synopsis", Allmovie , Rovi Corporation , retrieved April 24, 2010
  5. Knegt, Peter (September 3, 2009), "Fonda, Loach and Klein Among Those Joining Protest Against TIFF", indieWIRE , SnagFilms , retrieved April 23, 2010[ dead link ]
  6. Buck, Naomi (February 13, 2009), "Canadians come out strong at Berlinale", The Globe and Mail , CTVglobemedia, archived from the original on February 4, 2010, retrieved April 23, 2010
  7. "Gay Entertainment Report: A Second Teddy For Hernandez", On Top, On Top Media, February 16, 2009, retrieved April 23, 2010