Over the course of the last few weeks, we have gradually decided to use the township of Atlantis and the radio station there as the focus of our film because it ties together so many of the themes that we have been developing during our time here—the movement to confront stigma, the importance of localized messages about HIV/AIDS, and the power of local, grassroots media to engage in dialogue and initiate change in areas where the government and national education programs often fall short. On Thursday we spent some time visiting the homes of Shane, Alex, and Rosaline, (the three HIV positive volunteers at the radio station who we have had the opportunity to get to know over the last few weeks.) We got some really valuable footage of them interacting with their families, friends, and neighbors, and going about their daily routines. We also interviewed another volunteer at the radio station, a young man and emerging musician and DJ who spoke about music and educational and community programming with equal passion. Friday, we spent some more time just filming the daily activities of the radio station, the various shows that go on the air, and all of the behind the scenes activity. The station manager Rachel Visser also took us to one of the many factories that employ the people of Atlantis, where they play Radio Atlantis constantly, we got to film the workers listening to Radio Atlantis as they worked and speak with them about the many ways the programming has effected their attitudes and practices, both in regards to workers rights and as community members. In our last few hours at Radio Atlantis we found the tables turned on us yet again, when we were interviewed on air about our project and our impressions of Atlantis and South Africa as a whole. It was a really cool experience, and as testament to how many people are tuned in to Radio Atlantis, when we stepped out afterwards to grab some food, the shopkeeper recognized our voices from the radio, and asked us how the documentary was coming!
We are packed and in little more then an hour we will be headed to the airport and beginning our journey back home to New York. We are sad to be leaving Cape Town and the friendships that we have formed, but are looking forward to really starting the editing process and making this documentary something that both our friends in South Africa, and us at La Lutta can be proud of.

Thank you all for reading and for your continued support.

--Briana and Lynchy

We have been experiencing some power outages here in Cape Town, so as a result we have a lot of catching up to do for this blog entry. On Friday we went back to Atlantis where the radio station was. We interviewed three more people there, including another volunteer for the radio station, a man named Shane King who is living with AIDS. Unlike the other HIV positive people that we have interviewed so far, with Shane the effects that AIDS has had on his health is very visible. We barely even had to interview him, I think we asked him two or three questions, once he started talking he just kept going, filling up two sixty-minute tapes. He was really kind of amazing to talk to, very positive, none of the self-pity that I imagine that I would feel if I was in his situation, and he had a lot to share about his own personal experience and was also very knowledgeable about government policy toward HIV/AIDS and the various activist organizations that are out there. The thing that made the biggest impact on me was that he seemed to really WANT to talk, afterwards he thanked us for the chance to voice his thoughts and experiences, when of course we were the ones who really learned from listening to him.
We had our first filming-free weekend since being in Cape Town, so besides making plans for the upcoming week and capturing some of our footage from the previous week, we had some time to continue our explorations. On Saturday we joined some of our house-mates on a hike up Table Mountain which overlooks the city, and we spent most of Sunday on a trip to Robben Island, (where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for nineteen years,) and worked on expanding our knowledge about South Africa’s complicated history.
Today, (Monday,) we met with an Organization called Worker’s World Media Productions that trains community radio stations, (such as Radio Atlantis,) to do radio shows about local issues primarily regarding labor and worker’s rights, but they are starting to focus more and more on HIV/AIDS. In our interviews with both the project coordinator of the Labour Community Radio Project and the project coordinator of the youth media project we heard a different perspective and on the role of media in communicating localized messages about HIV/AIDS, and the power of radio in a country that still struggles with high rates of illiteracy. In an informal conversation before the interviews, they took an opportunity to reverse roles and ask us a couple of challenging questions about this documentary that we are trying to make, starting with “Why will Americans care about what is happening in South Africa?” We tried to address their questions as fairly and honestly as we could, answering that we can’t guarantee that Americans will care, but we are hoping that we can help to promote the idea that AIDS is a global problem that needs to be dealt with on a global scale. It was an unexpected turn of events, but we also truly appreciated to be challenged in this way, and it was the first time since being here that we really had to actively defend our project, and our ideas-- always a worthwhile exercise.

On Tuesday we went to visit a clinic in another township called Masiphumelele. There we met with the three peer educators who work together on education projects to teach people about HIV and AIDS and encourage them to get tested. They told us about some of the challenges of their work: the cultural attitudes towards condoms that they face, the stigma that still surrounds the disease and that promotes a widespread fear of getting tested. They took an hour to really show us around the township. It was such condensed poverty, so many people crammed into a comparatively tiny area and sharing two taps of water for drinking, bathing, cooking... the shacks were often literally strung together with garbage, and were tiny. It is strange to think that these sort of living conditions can exist just a short drive from the Camps Bay area of Cape Town, where David Beckham and other celebrities have beautiful houses on the beach. The inequalities here are glaring.

Hi all! We had a great day today when we left the city of Cape Town for a little bit to visit a nearby township called Atlantis. There we met Rachel Visser, the station manager and one of the founders of Radio Atlantis, a grassroots, community radio station that provides music and entertainment along with education about a range of important issues that are relevant to the community, most prominently HIV/AIDS. Rachel's passion for her work shone through in her interview, and we became first-hand witnesses to the strong connections that she has fostered within the community when, (with no prior notice,) she pulled together several extra people for us to speak to. Among those were two HIV positive community members, Alexander September and Rosaline Myrtle, who are active volunteers for Radio Atlantis, as well as other local HIV/AIDS organizations, including Treatment Action Campaign and the Atlantis AIDS/HIV Network. For Alex and Rosaline, living openly with their status in a community where stigma and denial are still very much alive, is not only a means of personal empowerment, but also a political statement. In addition, we had the opportunity to see Alex and Rosaline talk about their experiences on the air. We were really inspired by what we saw in Atlantis, and by the power of community radio to initiate dialogue, impact attitudes, and confront stigma. We are planning to return later this week to do some more filming and see more of the Radio Atlantis in action.

Our fifth day in the country and we are still working on familiarizing ourselves with the local organizations and individuals who are actively fighting the battle against the AIDS epidemic, on everything from a community, to an international level. Yesterday we interviewed Ntando Yola, Community Liaison and Education Officer for the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation. He became involved after he worked as a school-teacher and was confronted with students dropping out of school, either to care for relatives with AIDS, or because they were infected themselves. Now he works with youth groups in several communities and runs clinical trials to test for an HIV vaccine. He spoke about the discrepancies that he encounters on a regular basis between knowledge about HIV/AIDS versus attitudes and practice. Ntando kindly offered to bring us into some of the townships next week to meet some of the negative cohort adolescence that he works with, and we are very excited about the opportunity to meet some of the young people who are involved on such a personal level.

Another extremely knowledgeable person that we have had the opportunity to speak with is Stacie Stender, who has worked for Columbia University’s International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs, (ICAP) as a clinical advisor, and for the Presidents’ Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, (PEPFAR.) We learned a lot from Stacie about the community of AIDS educators and health providers in South Africa, and she also shared with us her experiences of working for PEPFAR, telling us that approximately a quarter of the funds allocated for PEPFAR go just to South Africa. A mind-boggling figure, that at the very least, points to devastating effect that AIDS has had on the country.

These past few days we have really been focusing on learning about the many issues surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Africa in every way that we can: from reading the newspaper every morning to talking to all of the locals that we meet. And of course, filming it all on the way.

We are just wrapping up our first day in Cape Town and are so excited to be here! We spent most of the day getting acclimated, running errands, and exploring the city. Cape Town is such a fascinating place with an extremely complicated history, and we are quickly realizing just how much we have to learn. In our wandering we stumbled upon an annual street parade, in which musical troupes from various communities around Cape Town compete. We got some really beautiful footage of the parade, we have no idea how we might use that footage yet, but it is a great taste of local vibrancy. Tomorrow we will reach out to some of our current contacts to try to line up some interviews, and hopefully meet more people with stories to tell.

More later,
Lynchy and Briana

La Lutta is Proud of Lynchy Lezeau and Briana Orr, 2007-2008 Artists-In-Residence

It certainly has been an exciting 2007! 2008 looks to be even better. On New Year's Eve, Lynchy Lezeau and Briana Orr -this years La Lutta NMC's Artists-In-Residence-are flying to Capetown, South Africa to begin production on a film documenting HIV/AIDS. They will also be chronicling the impending election that looks like to be a very pivotal one for South Africa. This is all part of an on-going documentary series that Lynchy and Briana will be co-directing over the next 12 months. We are in discussions with various media outlets including PBS to screen this series. Please keep up with Lynchy and Briana's work by checking out their blog and by visiting lalutta.org. Of course, any kind of help you could offer is more than appreciated.

Buono Anno!

Antonino D'Ambrosio
La Lutta NMC, Executive Director