Oliver Schmitz, photo: Karin Luisa Badt

Oliver Schmitz discusses his new film:
 
How did you--a white South African-- get interested in the AIDS problem for black South Africans?
 
The lack of political response to AIDS angered me.  Some of my own friends have died of AIDS. Then I read the young adult novel  "Chanda's Secrets", by Allan Stratton.  A Canadian, he travelled throughout South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe for his book.  Here in South Africa, there are a lot of taboos about AIDS because it is so closely associated with death.  In South Africa, you don't speak about death  directly. Even after twenty years of AIDS awareness campaign, there is a lot of stigma and much ignorance. One campaign suggested that olive oil is an important part of the diet to combat AIDS. 
 
Your film is really intimate with the AIDS orphan experience. How do you personally know what that's like?
 
For the film, I met with children in a very successful clinic run by a Dutch doctor in South Africa, which gets the support of major philanthropists, such as Bill Gates. This clinic makes drugs accessible, that the sick can have a relatively normal life. I learned a lot from the children.  One 14 year old girl's parents both died from AIDS related illnesses. She was not able to say that her parents died of AIDS. She was taking care of her little brother and sister.  They still have the family house, and one neighbor  helped with food. A relative would come once a month with beans. There are 800,000 AIDS orphans in South Africa. The majority live on their own, rejected by their family. You are unclean and cursed if you have AIDS.
 
Can you comment on your ending shot of Chanda, staring at the camera?  It is reminiscent of Truffaut's 400 Blows.
 
The film ends with this shot to show how she has changed incredibly. There is something heroic and flawed about her. She is very strong, and that is one of the major assets of the young actress. We found her in the area. Yes, we helped her out after the shoot. Her future changed.  Now she wants to be an actress. There is a boarding school for the arts, and I have initiated discussions for her to continue her studies there. I had a meeting with Fox Searchlight and they are interested in her.
 
Was it difficult for you to grow up as a white in apartheid South Africa?
 
No it was not difficult. It was like living in a privileged dictatorship  with access to everything except freedom of information and access to your fellow South Africans. I was still in school when the Soweto uprisings happened, and our school principle warned us not to be involved. I never had a black friend: there was no opportunity. My father worked in a candy factory so I saw some blacks there. I never had a chance to engage with black children, until university.
 
How did you decide to become a politically engaged director?
 
I was studying fine arts at the university. At that time, Cape Town held its first international film festival  with international directors, such as Nicolas Roeg, so I saw  "The Man Who Fell to Earth."   Wow, you can do that with film, I thought!  I had grown up with censored movies: suddenly there would be a cut, and you got used to it.  Festivals have no censorships, they had special permission.
 
As for politics: at university, we felt the threat of military conscription, and this became a major political issue. Many men went to England. I went to Germany because I did not want to  fight an unjust war--the war of apartheid.  My German father was on the front in Russia so I knew the evils of war.   Then when I came back, in Cape Town, my friends and I ran a nightclub for four years: both white students and fellow students from the townships. It was political because it was interracial and it was closed down. The police threw teargas. This politicized a lot of naïve young students.
 
Is there hope in your film?
 
Obviously there is hope always.  Something positive comes out of confrontation with a problem.  Finally things are out in the open. You can talk about AIDS. The neighbors become understanding.  And Chanda  forms a new family with friends and neighbors.   "Life Above All" is a universal story--not just about South Africa.  I didn't want to make a movie that is relegated to a small box: Aids in Africa.  My film concerns a moving relation between mother and daughter, which happens to be in Africa. Everything seems fine on the surface; life continues after the death of Chanda's sister. Life goes on.  This is why I changed the title from "Chanda's Secrets" to "Life Above All." I thought hard about that title, and concluded the most important thing for me is life.
 
In your film, you have a provocative scene with a  traditional healer.  Are you critical of the native approach to healing?
 
The traditional healer offers divination and herbal medical remedies. They have a positive role and also a negative role. It seemed negative in the film, because it does not really offer an answer, and is used to convince people that everything is fine. Now  there is a joint movement of doctors and healers. 
 
Any suggestions on what readers can do to help?
 
Get drugs to the AIDS patients. Pharmaceuticals make a lot of profit on drugs. There is a great Lobby Group--TAC, Treatment Action Campaign--that has a lot of success in pressuring the government to get drugs cheaply to AIDS patients. The leader--Zackie Achmat--refused treatment himself until all patients have access to the drugs.
 http://www.tac.org.za/community