The Gift

Victoria-based Men’s Wellness Program tackles documentary on unprotected anal sex and the challenges of HIV prevention

Victoria - Documentary filmmaker Louise Hogarth’s controversial film, The Gift, discusses the deliberate giving and receiving of HIV among a select group of gay men. AIDS Vancouver Island’s Men’s Wellness Program, in partnership with the Victoria Independent Film and Video Festival, will present the film on February 4th at 9:30pm, with a panel and forum to follow at 10:30pm. The film will be shown at the Multi-Cultural Centre at 1417 Broad Street.

Director Louise Hogarth is clear in her motives for the film. She wanted HIV/AIDS back in the headlines and didn’t want her film to go unnoticed.

The film features Doug, a young, intelligent and articulate man who recently moved to San Francisco searching for a gay community. He actively sought out the “gift” of HIV infection. Once he became infected, he felt a sense of belonging to a community. The documentary also features noted psychoanalyst Dr. Walt Odets, author of In the Shadow of the Epidemic. Odets focuses on the loss, grief and anxiety that some HIV negative men experience.

”There’s little doubt that this documentary will provoke a wide variety of responses from people, including anger, rage, sadness and confusion,” states Rick Barnes, coordinator of AIDS Vancouver Island’s Gay Men’s Community Development program. “HIV prevention work has always been a complex job, with no quick fix. What we want to do by showing this film is to stimulate dialogue, get men talking about the subject matter. We know that some of these issues aren’t easy to talk about but it is part of the solution.”

A panel discussion will follow the documentary. The panel, including Michael Yoder, former Chair of the Canadian AIDS Society and Gordon McKillop, a person living with HIV, will give audience members the opportunity to discuss and ask questions about what they’ve seen and heard.

“In the film Hogarth labels ‘barebacking’ as deliberate high-risk sex with no regard for HIV infection, but I would challenge that,” says Jim Oliver, acting manager of Health Promotion and Community Development at AIDS Vancouver Island. “I think a distinction should be made between barebacking and the rare phenomenon of gift-giving and bug-chasing. From a prevention stand point, how we approach these two issues is quite different.”

“Men have unprotected anal sex for any number of reasons; our job as educators is not to judge people, or police them, our role is to provide men with as much information as we can and to stimulate dialogue so that men are making the best decisions possible with the best information possible.”

The Gift promises to be controversial and challenging for the audience and discussion participants.

The Men’s Wellness Program, a program of AIDS Vancouver Island, is funded by Health Canada under the AIDS Community Action Program. The mission of the program is to empower gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men to make informed choices about their own sexual health and reduce HIV and STD infections.

Tickets for this event are available through the Men's Wellness Program at 1601 Blanshard Street or the Film Festival Ticket office.

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For more information or to arrange interviews with the Men’s Wellness Program Coordinator call: Stacy Leblanc at 704-2990 ext. 2.