Positively: Program Reviews

Excerpted from the LA Times Health Section

November 26, 2001

Positively: The Changing Face of AIDS in America
By Jane E. Allen

"There's a clear mission behind the hour-long [public television] documentary, 'Positively: The Changing Face of AIDS in America,' sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health....Airing the day before World AIDS Day, the program provides an inside look at what it's like having AIDS 20 years into the global epidemic, when better medications make it more of a chronic illness.

The program's strength lies in engaging interviews with a terrific group of adults and kids. Straight, gay, middle-class, poor, they're mostly identified on a first-name basis--and all seem to be working to maintain a good attitude, despite the obstacles. Their stories are honest, compelling, sometimes heartbreaking, often uplifting."

- Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times

Excerpted from the LA Times TV Section

November, 30, 2001

Gripping Tale of Life with AIDS
By Mark Sachs, Times Staff Writer

"On the eve of World AIDS Day, [public television] delivers a powerful one-hour documentary tonight that speaks both to the fragility and the resiliency of the human spirit.

'Positively: The Changing Face of AIDS in America' (9 p.m., KCET), uses the first-person accounts of children, teens and adults to grippingly illustrate the evolution of the disease in the past two decades from a terminal illness to a chronic one.

With Academy Award winner Gerardine Wurzburg (for the 1992 documentary on a child with Down syndrome, 'Educating Peter') and Grady Watts serving as executive producers and Ali B. DeGerome producing and directing, the program shows how new drug therapies have revolutionized the treatment of HIV and AIDS. But receiving life-prolonging treatment means first accepting that you have the disease, and that's where many in this program first stumble.
Side effects from the heavy doses of medication and the rigorous schedule for taking the array of drugs wear on some of the people to the point that they begin wondering if death wouldn't be a better--or at least an easier--option.

With individual and group counseling, however, they find the strength that helps them cope with their situations....The stories are tied together with ...many graphics showing, among other facts, the disease's proliferation among minorities and women, but the people remain the best communicators."

- Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times.