I remember meeting Kevin as he always dressed then, in a frayed but impeccably clean white shirt and khaki shorts, his school uniform, a twelve year old boy alone. He had one table”, surrounded oddly enough by seven chairs. A lot of chairs for one boy living by himself. (I found out later that they belonged to his mother. When I asked him why didn’t he sell them, he just looked at me as if I were crazy. He couldn’t sell them. “They belonged to my mother.”
From the Director
I made 14 Million Dreams, the stories of individual children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, their lives, their struggles, and their dreams. These were just some of the literally millions of children left to fend for themselves. It’s hard enough to grow up orphaned, without the obligatory and unconditional love of a parent, especially in the poverty that so many of these children grow up in. But on top of that, they are stigmatised by their community for their parents’ dying of this disease. A disease that, all these years after the Moral Majority in America condemned it as God’s punishment to be meted out to homosexuals, still has the onus of taboo and sin placed upon it.
Though the film played to influential members of government and NGOs, as well as members of the general public, and seemed to touch them, the reality of the AIDS epidemic that I’d witnessed in Africa seemed still so far removed from the West. People, leaders, praised and funded campaigns to promote abstinence until marriage, as if this would somehow prevent the epidemic from reaching even more horrific proportions. Or people just didn’t want to talk about this disease, except for one day a year World AIDS Day, when we all could agree that it was a “terrible thing” and then carry on with our lives.
But I couldn’t let go – of the haunted children I’d met, nor of the adults that I’d seen dying of what I know is a preventable disease. Somehow I wanted to make this epidemic real to people, to understand what the implications were to children and adults in the epicentre.
Kevin and I met during the making of 14 Million Dreams. We stayed in touch through letters and the kind people at the Pandiperi Catholic Center. Because of that film, he, unlike many children like him, was able to continue to go to school. Against the odds, he has survived until now. But Kevin wanted to know about what is being done for others like him. While many organizations talk a lot about ‘OVCs’ (Orphans and Vulnerable Children), not much has changed in the lives of 14 million of these children. Many still face unbearable living conditions, exploitation and disease, with little idea of their own self-worth and, with no parents to guide them, no sense that they are cared for by the world at all. Some of the children, hundreds of thousands of them, end up on the streets, sniffing glue. And now, as abstinence campaigns keep coming into their communities, what are these children to do protect themselves?
Must children like Kevin die or be condemned to sub-human lives because national and international programs fail to deliver on their promises of aid and education? Are there concrete steps that we can take today to make their life a better life? Through the prism of this extraordinary boy, at first a shy and sensitive survivor, I wanted to explore the implications of the disease that may kill more people than any other in human history. Unlike plagues before it, it primarily attacks the adult productive members of society, leaving behind the aging and very young to fend for themselves. And it has been my experience that even the most drug-addicted street child still wants an education and a home.
Making the film has been a struggle, but also a pleasure. Kevin really did transform from a victim into a young leader in his community, from a shy but determined boy concerned with his own survival into a teenager concerned about the fates of others less fortunate than him. And I am grateful to him. He has taught me that however much I care, I can care more. Not only was I moved by the plight of the AIDS patients in the hospitals of Nairobi, but I was moved by his compassion for them. If a boy with nothing can feel so much compassion, what can we, who have so much, do?
In this film, through one young man’s struggle, hopefully we get a better idea of what happens on an individual human level when political and religious leaders talk about and fund billions of dollars into such approaches to the epidemic as abstinence. Through Kevin, hopefully, viewers will not only be entertained and touched by his and others’ journeys but moved to fight against the poverty and misinformation that allow the epidemic to grow unchecked.
I’m grateful to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sundance Channel, TG4 Ireland, and Ch 11 in Thailand for participating in what must have seemed like a risky endeavour, to the Australian Film Commission and Film Victoria, and to everyone who contributed and worked so hard to make this film itself “real”.
About the Filmmakers
Director Miles Roston is a filmmaker who has filmed around the world from Vietnam to Australia to Sierra Leone. His film, 14 Million Dreams, about five orphans of AIDS in Kenya and Malawi debuted on World Aids Day on the Sundance Channel, at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, and around the world. His other films have also won him various awards and an Emmy nomination. In addition to documentaries, he co-created, and wrote and directed over 20 episodes of Aliens Among Us, a 65 part children’s series blending animation, drama and documentary for Five in the UK, and airing internationally including on the ABC. His dramatic feature film, also set against the background of the AIDS epidemic, is in pre-production with producers Graham Bradstreet, Marten Rabarts and Xoliswa Sithole.
Veronica Sive’s International Production Services Australia Pty Ltd is a production company and a consultancy specialising in the area of film, television and new media production. Outback Opera written and directed by Jennifer Crone aired on ABC True Stories in May 2003, and screened at MusicDocFest, Rome, The Ojai and Tiburon International Film Festivals. Producer of Photograph, directed by Sarah Lambert starring Elaine Lee and Anne Lambert. In post-production is a Nun’s New Habit and The Times They Ain’t A-Changin, in production and development are The Paris End of Town and the feature film When We Where Modern to be directed by Philippe Mora.
Producer for news and television, Pierre Peyrot has been the media manager for the International AIDS Conferences since 1998. He co-produced Steps for the Future, a collection of 35 films made by local filmmakers on AIDS in southern Africa. The films have aired worldwide and won many awards. As a news producer, he’s covered the most important world events of the past two decades, and has several documentaries on sustainable development and globalisation issues to his credit such as the co-production for France 2 entitled Ellen and Terrorism. Sinesipho: Why Must I Die? directed by Pierre Peyrot and produced by Patrice Barrat is in production. His company, Mondopop Mediavision, is based in New York.
