Submitted by Thom Fitzgerald, Dec 2, 2006 04:04

This is the filmmaker, Thom Fitzgerald. "3 Needles" is certainly interpretable, and that was my intention. I don't think the film itself judges the Canadian characters more harshly than the South African or Chinese characters-- but I accept that Ms. Keane, like each viewer, will judge the characters as she sees fit. The passage of narration that Ms. Keane quotes says ""When all of mankind has a common enemy in this virus, why have we not joined together at last in order to fight it? I'm afraid of the answer." Ms. Keane inteprets this passage as placing blame on the west... but read it again, that's not what it says at all. Over time the AIDS virus has been associated with and blamed on gays, hemopheliacs, drug users, Haitians, prostitutes, Africans. AIDS divided and subdivided people until we all attacked each other over it, and some profited politically and financially from that blame. This sort of derisiveness was not part of the history of diabetes or cancer. The narration goes on to answer from Sister Hilde's persepective. It's God that has kept people apart-- or at least "the different ways in which we believe in" Him. Rather than saying nothing, I did try to put forth the findings of my long travel and research. That AIDS is unrecognizable from country to country. That money fuels the panedemic, and that religion fuels the pandemic--not one religion, but many, including the Catholic stance against condoms, the Xhosi circumscision ritual to manhood, and the traditional "cures" in Asia and Africa. In American movies, we are accustomed to good and evil being embodied by a hero and a villian. I chose to let good and evil inhabit each character fully; the only villain in "3 Needles" is the virus itself. In the spirit of altering the path of the pandemic, I chose not to place blame. I also didn't lay these ideas out flat for the viewer, but aimed to convey the above ideas through imagery instead of through speeches. What I did hope to convey is that we must escape our narrow point of view about AIDS in order to fight it. Te social status of women and children needs to be fully addressed in combating AIDS. In South Africa, one million rapes occur every year-- that's every 25 seconds. And a South African University estimates 54% of children are raped before they achieve puberty. Our own methods of prevention-- condoms, abstinence, faithfulness-- have failed the women and children of Africa. Now, there are 3 women with HIV for every man with HIV among South African young adults. In "3 Needles" we showed some of the reasons why. By making my films interpretable (rather than telling the viewer what to think), I ask for people to rely on their own perspective to some extent, so Ms. Keane's thoughts are perfectly valid. And she does seem to have considered it duly. But it's interesting to note that she feels the film falls short by "only criticizing the slow response of the developed world to react to this crisis"... when in fact that particular critique is not part of "3 Needles" in any way. The Chinese characters haven't even learned what they're dealing with; the Africans certainly never mention any disappointment in the west's response; the Canadian story doesn't touch upon our western response either. It seems to me Ms. Keane watched the film and she decided for herself that people from the western world should do more and do it faster. I didn't tell her to think that. So maybe the film said something to her after all. -Thom Fitzgerald

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.