“It continues to draw my attention to the fact that Most information programs still confuse HIV and AIDS, without differentiating between the two.“, admits the misinformation about this virus, as well as the illness it can cause, the director, screenwriter and actor Eduardo Casanova.
With eight new HIV diagnoses per day in Spain, or around 3,000 per year, many people are currently living with the virus in our country. This leads to silence and stigmatization, despite the fact that pandemics like Covid have brought the entire world to a standstill.
On the occasion of International AIDS Day, December 1Casanova created Silencea series in which he uses a recurring leitmotif, in the cinema of the 80s and 90s, which linked HIV to vampirism. And this pandemic, currently incurable, continues to rage throughout the world.
“Silence”, a comedy that depicts the drama of HIV
“There is one thing I insisted on, which is that the series It wasn’t a leaflet or an explanatory series of a social problem. My main exercise was to make the series fun, but addresses an extremely current subjectlike HIV and the pandemic that is not yet over,” Casanova confesses to CINEMANÍA. “I wanted people of any ideology or color to understand that this affects absolutely everyone. He doesn’t understand gender or sex. Wanna let it be very clear that for me, talking about HIV, an illness, This is not a speech or a political position, “HIV and AIDS affect us all.”
Casanova emphasizes that Homosexuals still harbor the fear that devastated the LGBTI community in the 1980sas one of the most affected population groups. This has led to more respect and prevention, but This does not happen in the same way for the rest of society.
“To this day, The percentage of women with AIDS is higher than that of men. HIV is being transmitted to many women in their 50s and 60s because their husbands are having secret relationships with prostitutes, and the number of people infected is increasing. HIV among adolescent girls is very high and of course also in heterosexual couples” Casanova demystifies the virus and the disease historically associated with the LGTBI community.
Women, the most affected in recent years
“It seemed to me that the metaphor of vampirism had a lot in common with blood and liquids, and especially with live hidden in the dark. This is very typical of HIV-positive people, with this new wave of chemsex (substance use, linked to sexual culture), where people go to these parties to difficulties linked to serophobia itself and for having to have sex in dark places. This makes these vampires silent and people living with HIV or AIDS discriminated against. What’s scary here is the silence imposed by society and that the protagonists impose themselves”, he adds about this problem.
Casanova also emphasizes the differences between HIV and covid, especially in how the two viruses originated and affected society. “The coronavirus has affected everyone. This happened to the king as it did to you or me. To the richest and the poorest. But In its early days, HIV primarily targeted a sector that had to have secret sexual relationships, who were homosexual people, homosexual men and women. They no longer carried only the backpack of serophobia, of a new disease appeared in the United States in 1981but they were also carriers of homophobia and lesbophobia,” he concludes.
Some organizations like UN They continue to fight to make society aware that HIV and AIDS are still very present among us, which is why the importance of research into its treatment and normalization for those living with the virus They are fundamental in an increasingly navel-gazing world.
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