Lance Bangs and Spike have joined forces with the (RED) foundation to make The Lazarus Effect, a fascinating and emotional portrait of the AIDS crisis’ human impact in sub-Saharan Africa. Tracking a number of HIV-positive individuals’ journeys back from the edge of death as they receive Antiretroviral treatment, The Lazarus Effect offers an optimistic look at the effects of these medicines and the impact of organizations and individuals fighting to make them accessible.
“(RED), Spike and I went into this film wanting the people in it to tell their own stories,” says Lance. “Connie, Bwalya, Concillia and Paul represent people who now have a chance at a future when only seven years ago, a diagnosis of HIV for them would have been a death sentence. This film is a hopeful one, yet still a reminder that almost 4,000 people still die every day from AIDS in Africa, because not all people who need access to the treatment have it.”
The Lazarus Effect will be broadcast tonight on HBO at 9pm EST, in UK on Channel 4 at 11pm GMT, and globally on YouTube starting at 9:30pm EST.
Ghanaian movie posters are known for being rad. There have been plenty of blogs, books and art shows devoted to appreciating the creative beauty evident in these utilitarian, yet strikingly original, marketing tools. It’s always nice to see something bland and familiar, like a generic American action film, reinterpreted through fresh artistic eyes. Ephemera Assemblyman’s collection of mind-blowing Ghanaian movie posters is quite impressive.
In the 1980s video cassette technology made it possible for “mobile cinema” operators in Ghana to travel from town to town and village to village creating temporary cinemas. The touring film group would create a theatre by hooking up a TV and VCR onto a portable generator and playing the films for the people to see.
In order to promote these showings, artists were hired to paint large posters of the films (usually on used canvas flour sacks). The artists were given the artistic freedom to paint the posters as they desired – often adding elements that weren’t in the actual films, or without even having seen the movies.
Hermas Zopoula is this rad dude from the West African nation of Burkina Faso who makes really beautiful music, comes from a family of 36 children, volunteers in an oprhanage, runs an internet cafe and loves mopeds. His debut album, Espoir is coming out on Sufjan Stevens’ Asthmatic Kitty Records this month, and it’s amazing. A double-disc set comprised of Hermas’ quadrilingual folk songs alternately recorded in a rented government recording studio and in the intimacy of his own backyard, Hermas’ music carries none of the exotic connotations of “world music” in spite of its distant locale. Hermas sings straight to the listener like an old friend. Check out this video of Hermas performing on the street behind his house in Ouagadougou:
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