(photo by Mary Donaldson)
Film series, other events honor global fight to combat AIDS
The Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health is co-sponsoring this year's World AIDS Day International Film Series, to be held Nov. 20-23 at the Watkins College of Art, Design & Film, 2298 Rosa L. Parks Blvd. in Nashville.
Here is the schedule of movies and other events, which are free:
• Nov. 20, 6-9 p.m. — “My Own Country,” based on the biography of Abraham Verghese, M.D., who treated the first AIDS patients in East Tennessee in the mid-1980s. Stephen Raffanti, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of Medicine and chief medical officer of Nashville's Comprehensive Care Center, will lead a discussion after the movie.
• Nov. 21, 6-9 p.m. — Double feature: “Revelación/Disclosure” and “Absolutely Positive,” which present different perspectives on disclosing one's HIV status to others.
• Nov. 22, 6-8:30 p.m. — “Remembering the Cosmos Flower,” about a teenager with HIV who confronts stigma in her village in Japan. Sten Vermund, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Institute for Global Health, will lead a discussion after the movie.
• Nov. 23, 6-8:30 p.m. — “Sons of Lwala,” documentary of the Ochieng' brothers and their successful efforts to establish the first health clinic in their rural village in Kenya.
Fred Ochieng,' a third-year medical student at Vanderbilt, will lead a discussion after the movie.
Vanderbilt also is co-sponsoring a program on World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, to be held in the Meharry Medical College Learning Resource Center from 6-8 p.m. “ONE Voice,” dramatized stories of people who reveal their experiences with HIV/AIDS, will be presented by a First Person Theatre group.
Posters on HIV prevention programs around the world prepared by Vanderbilt students will be on display, and Nashville songwriter Sarah Hart will conclude the evening with a song she wrote in honor of World AIDS Day.
For more information, contact Nashville CARES at 259-4866 or visit: www.worldaidsdaynashville.org.