Dylan Mohan Gray’s documentary Fire in the Blood exposes how the unavailability of low-cost AIDS drugs in southern countries caused catastrophe. He talks to Iknoor Kaur about the lack of documentation on the subject
Did you know that twice the amount of people killed in holocaust lost their lives due to blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugsIJ Or that India is the only country till date to provide low-cost drugs to the entire worldIJ Only a few would know that India is facing an immense pressure by the Western countries to increase the cost of these drugs. Dylan Mohan Gray’s documentary Fire in the Blood is a riveting revelation of one of what can be called as the biggest crime of the century. It features how people came together to fight and saved millions of lives in the process. The film was screened at India Habitat Centre on August 30.
Fire in the Blood is never-before-told story of medicine, monopoly and malice shot in four continents. It includes contributions from Bill Clinton, Desmond Tutu and Joseph Stiglitz. The documentary highlights how Western pharmaceutical companies and government aggressively blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for African and other southern countries post 1996, causing 10 million or more unnecessary deaths.
Though Dylan has worked in the industry for long, he doesn’t have an experience of making documentaries. However, he felt that this story needed to be told. He said, “My early career was as a historian. It irked me that there was no document or record on the loss of lives. It was shocking. What made me more angry and frustrated was that even I knew almost nothing about it. I felt there was probably a reason why this story wasn’t told and then started researching on it.”
The documentary features 16 people from two sections — the macro-political leaders and local players. He shared, “When I started reading on the issue, my research led me to the conclusion that there wasn’t much available. I needed to speak to people to get more. Moreover, I needed people with first-hand experience. I finalised the list in 2007. I looked forward to interacting with those who could share their stories without any reluctance. The documentary needed to have an emotional element that was to be built through such personal stories.”
For Dylan it was important to dig the layers that remained hidden from many. “It’s a different ball game to make a documentary and you need to have a certain perspective. Since I mostly made feature films I was used to working with actors who know their job well. But people featured in the documentary were not trained actors but real life heroes who faced the crisis. Their stories needed to be told in a different way. It was perhaps challenging to make them speak for the documentary as some were apprehensive that their disclosure might get them into some trouble,” informed Dylan.
Dylan called India the protagonist of the film. He continued, “India supplies affordable drugs to the entire world and it is credible that they have stood their ground. I want this film to be a warning call for the future. The lesson hasn’t been learnt. Since many countries rely on India, the country faces a lot of pressure, but we need to stay focussed and strong.”
The response to the film has been great. “We had one universal reaction — ‘I can’t believe I didn’t know about this.’ The story has been hidden and people feel cheated about it,” he summed up.