God Has AIDS

Forty years after the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic, a person infected with the virus is no longer automatically condemned to death; the disease has become a chronic condition. But in Brazil, where many still directly associate HIV/AIDS with homosexuality and a promiscuous lifestyle, the stigma surrounding the disease remains high. President Bolsonaro’s hateful rhetoric in recent years has fueled “serophobia,” and his budget cuts are hitting educational programs and clinics. As a consequence, more than 10.000 people a year in Brazil die from this treatable disease.

Seven artists and an activist doctor—all HIV-positive—speak out against the fatal ignorance, but also against racism in the gay scene and the total invisibility of women with HIV/AIDS. Through dance, performance, and poetry, they give HIV-positive people a face. They even manage to take something positive from their serological status: a better understanding of their bodies and their mortality.