Bloody tales

To coincide with the 25th anniversary of the first AIDS diagnosis in Australia later this year, ABC TV will air first person accounts from the era in a documentary with the working title Blood And Guts: A Frank Story Of Survival.

The documentary’s director Victoria Pitt (pictured) said the AIDS response was an incredible part of Sydney’s history.

Something bloody extraordinary happened around here in the 80s, Pitt said.

A very unusual coalition of strange bedfellows got together here in Sydney to push back the epidemic -“ from the prime minister across to prostitutes and junkies.

Pitt’s inspiration to document the oral history of the epidemic first came while working on Enough Rope.

At my first taping I watched Marcia Hines talking about the AIDS epidemic and losing a lot of her friends very suddenly.

After hearing Hines, I realised I don’t think there was a concerted effort to get those people to sit down and explain what that experience was like.

Pitt hopes to present the human story of living through what felt like a plague and how Australia thrashed out its response by practical assistance rather than passing harsh laws.

A lot of people have said to me it was like living through a war.

The real work of stopping AIDS was done by ordinary people who did an extraordinary thing, a lot of them reviled marginalised people who turned out to be heroes, frankly, she said.

Pitt wants to tell not just the high-level politics, but the personal side that informed the choices.

Like a senior public adviser who is shaping national policy but at the same time his partner is at St Vincent’s dying of AIDS, she said.

It also means, like the Grim Reaper, I don’t expect people to agree in the end.

Pitt said she didn’t start out with an agenda, but fascination that was purely human and rooted in her own memories of fear and uncertainty.

In 1983 I was at school and beginning my first relationship with a girl, but deeply in the closet.

That year I got glandular fever, but it didn’t show up in the first blood. I remember saying to my girlfriend, -˜What if we’ve got AIDS?’ We were just snogging at the time, but that’s what it was like.

Pitt has asked for anyone who has a clear memory of that time to come forward to share his or her story at a taping in Darlinghurst on 16 June.

I want to know how they first heard about the threat, rumours they heard and how it began to change their life, Pitt said.

It’s very difficult subject matter, but already I’ve heard a lot of humour from all the different groups who were affected.

Those wishing to participate should email the producers at [email protected] including name and contact details.