“At the close of 2007, 33 million people are living with HIV. In just 12 months, 2.5 million people became infected with the virus, and 2 million people died of it.” These grim statistics, taken from Human Rights Watch’s Website, are a reminder that AIDS remains a dire problem.
This excellent documentary, alternately devastating and uplifting, chronicles the lives of teenagers in Romania who have been living with the disease all their lives. Infected as infants in Romanian hospitals and orphanages, and then essentially abandoned, these so-called “Ceacescu’s babies” found a home with foster parents working for the NGO Health Care Romania. The journey of these surrogate parents and their kids, who want nothing more or less than an ordinary life, is touchingly rendered by the filmmakers through interviews, scenes of their daily lives and challenges, and most movingly, home video footage of the children growing up.
Program notes by George Kaltsounakis