Crossover - Full Version

Archive ID: 1988_crossover_long

This production was made as the opening film for the IV International AIDS Conference in Stockholm in June 1988. It gives a broad representation of the global AIDS situation in the late 1980's, allowing a wide range of AIDS experts, public service workers such as the police, health care personnel and non-profit organisation workers, as well as persons living with HIV and AIDS to speak about the nature and the spread of the virus. The film revolves around social structures, poverty and stigma, and has a particular focus on cities and areas that were severly affected by AIDS, such as the gay friendly city San Francisco, the poor areas of New York, south eastern Asia and the Rakai District in Uganda.

Background material

"Crossover - The Global Impact of AIDS, was really the start of the Face of AIDS Film Archive and my continous documentation on HIV/AIDS over time at a global level. Before I started my journey for this film, Dr Hans Wigzell at the Karolinska Institutet advised me to film longer interviews and more extensive material than I would normally have done for a documentary. He wanted to develop a film archive on this new human epidemic, and he wanted me to do the job. The strongest memory from the shooting of this film was to meet the dying AIDS patient Lyle Taylor and his doctor John Dwyer, at Prince William Hospital in Sydney. Lyle died ten hours after the interview was made, on 8 March 1988, and that experience affected me to continue my new mission." - Staffan Hildebrand

Interview with Staffan Hildebrand in August 2015. Duration 2.32 min