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Critically acclaimed
documentary features narration by Glenn Close and
Will Smith.
A Closer Walk,
Academy Award nominee Robert Bilheimer’s film about
the global AIDS epidemic, will be broadcast
nationally on PBS August 31, 2006, at 9 pm EST/PST.
The PBS airing marks the 80-minute documentary’s US
television debut.
Narrated by Glenn Close and Will Smith, A Closer
Walk features cinematography by Richard D.
Young, interviews with the Dalai Lama, Bono, and
Kofi Annan, and musical contributions by Annie
Lennox, the Neville Brothers, Eric Clapton, and Sade.
The Way the World Is
Filmed on four continents over a period of three
years, A Closer Walk depicts the realities of
global AIDS, and explores the relationship between
health, dignity, and human rights.
“This is a story about the way the world is,” says
Ms. Close in the opening line of the film’s
narration. A Closer Walk’s rendering of the
world through the prism of AIDS takes the viewer to
locations in the United States, Ukraine, Uganda,
South Africa, India, and Haiti, and offers personal
stories of children, women, and men around the world
who are affected by the disease. Those caring or
advocating for people living with AIDS are featured
prominently in the film as well. They include Dr.
Paul Farmer, of Partners In Health, India’s Dr.
Suniti Solomon, and Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, of the
Earth Institute at Columbia University.
Describing his approach to the film, director Robert
Bilheimer said, “When I interviewed [UNAIDS
Executive Director] Peter Piot early on, I was
struck by his insight that ‘AIDS is part of the
human condition’, and that ‘AIDS exists because
we exist’. When Peter said that, I knew that
A Closer Walk should indeed be a film about the
way the world is, and that my colleagues and I would
need to be in and of the world for a period of time
to truly understand what AIDS is doing to us all.”
A Ten-Year Project
Conceived in 1996 with the late Jonathan Mann --
widely regarded as the architect of the
international response to global AIDS -- A Closer
Walk took three years to develop, three years to
make, and in 2007 will enter its fourth year of a
steadily expanding distribution campaign.
“The whole point”, says Bilheimer, “was to level the
playing field in terms of what we all-- as a
human family-- understand about AIDS. Making a film
that would somehow engage people around the world on
this issue was obviously a challenge on the creative
side. But the equal challenge, on the distribution
side, was to put the movie in front of, literally,
hundreds of millions of people. We are going to
achieve that this year.”
Since its premiere at the Los Angeles County Museum
of Art in 2003, A Closer Walk has been
broadcast nationally on South African television (SABC
1), and Canadian television (CBC). Agreements to air
the film on CCTV (China), and Doordarshan (India),
on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2006, are being
finalized.
Featured at the Tribeca Film Festival, A Closer
Walk has also screened at Lincoln Center in New
York City, and at regional premieres in Kansas City,
Boston, San Francisco, and Miami. The United Nations
and other agencies have sponsored premieres and
distribution programs in Ukraine, India, South
Africa, Cambodia, and Thailand.
The
film has been shown at hundreds of schools and
college campuses around the world, and been used as
a primary education and awareness tool by advocacy
groups, corporations, the United Nations, the US
State Department, and prominent AIDS organizations
including amfAR, The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS
Foundation, and South Africa’s Treatment Access
Campaign. The Oprah Winfrey Show featured excerpts
from A Closer Walk on World AIDS Day
broadcasts in 2004 and 2005.
The
PBS broadcast of A Closer Walk is sponsored
by General Motors and HSBC. Principal production
funding for the film was provided by the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation, General Motors, Eastman
Kodak, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the Edgebrook
Foundation. The film is directed by Robert
Bilheimer..
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