Coming to theatres today, Monday, December 1: 25 TO LIFE
Mike Brown’s profile of an HIV positive man seeking redemption debuted at the American Black Film Festival this Summer, where it picked up the best documentary award. The film now comes to theatres across the country for a series of one-night-only special screenings on World AIDS Day through Ava DuVernay’s African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement.
As an infant in the 1980s, William Brawner received a blood transfusion following a bad burn. Years later, his mother had him tested for HIV, and while asymptomatic, antibodies were detected. Fearing that her son would be stigmatized like young Ryan White was, she decided to keep his status a secret, though Brawner himself was told. As he matured and started having sex, the popular young man failed to inform his partners that he was HIV+ and neglected to use protection, potentially exposing both his high school girlfriend and nearly two dozen college classmates at Howard University to the virus. On the eve of a college reunion, and recently married and trying to have a child, Brawner decides to come clean, publicly disclosing his status on a radio show, and, not unexpectedly, getting a lot of backlash because of his morally troubling behavior. Brown follows the young man as he tries to make amends by setting up a non-profit service organization for HIV+ teens, speaking publicly about AIDS awareness, and, to a limited extent, reaching out to past partners. Brawner and his wife Bridgette are likeable, and he appears genuine in his desire to make positive change in his life, but Brown never really seems to push his subject into fully reckoning with the very questionable and risky choices he made, making this carry less of an impact than it probably could.
what (not) to doc 