A film about
Chinese orphans of AIDS victims won an Oscar for Best
Documentary Short Film, which a prominent AIDS activist in
China said showed people still cared.
Ruby Yang and
Thomas Lennon won the Oscar for The Blood of
Yingzhou District, which tells the story of
traditional Chinese obligations of family colliding
with the fears of AIDS in impoverished Anhui province,
and the fate of those left behind.
"I hadn't heard
of the film, but it's a good thing people care about
this," HIV-infected AIDS activist Li Xige, from the
adjoining province of Henan, told Reuters.
"Because this
problem has been going on for so long, and sometimes
I'm afraid it might be forgotten."
An estimated
650,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in China, and health
experts say the disease is moving into the general
population.
Henan was the
center of an AIDS scandal in the 1990s in which people sold
blood to unsanitary, often state-run health clinics, making
the province the center of the nation's AIDS epidemic.
Such schemes are also common in Anhui.
Li was infected
through a transfusion, not by selling blood.
China's Xinhua
news agency quoted Yang as saying backstage at the Kodak
Theatre in Los Angeles that it was "a very emotional journey
for me" to make the film in China.
Yang said she and
Lennon "also had a hard time in the editing room
because there were so many sad parts, and they had many
shouting matches about what to let go and what to put
in," Xinhua said.
Chung To, a
friend of Yang and founder-chairman of the Hong
Kong-based Chi Heng Foundation, which supports
some 4,000 AIDS orphans in China, said little had been
done "artistically or in terms of documentaries" to
publicize the issue.
"I think the
award really raises awareness about AIDS in China and
especially the plight of AIDS orphans. When we talk about
AIDS orphans, people really usually think of Africa,
but in China this is still a very serious issue."
He said China
officially estimates there are 76,000 AIDS orphans and says
the number will grow to 260,000 by 2010, but Chung says that
probably underestimates the problem. (Reuters)