Writer/Director Paul Shkordoff explains how his short film ‘Others,’ creatively depicts how #HIVStigma is different for everyone. You can watch the film here.

Transcript below.

PAUL
The experience of living with stigma is not monolithic. There’s so much nuance, there’s so much shape and color to what that experience means.

KARL
Hello there. Welcome to +Talk on +Life, where we’re all about turning positive into a plus and we are all about fighting HIV stigma. And my guest today is the director of a fantastic new short film in conjunction with Casey House, our friends up in Toronto, Canada, called “Others”. Paul Shkordoff, good to see you.

PAUL
Hi, Karl. Nice to meet you.

KARL
Nice to meet you, too. Congratulations on the film. Let’s just dive straight into it. This is something that Casey House every year does something kind of pretty big and spectacular to help fight HIV stigma. Before we talk about the content of the film, why don’t you just tell me a bit about how this came about and why it’s so important.

PAUL
Yeah, it came about really organically. I mean, it came across the desk of a commercial production company that I worked with called OPC about a year ago, and they came to us with this general idea of a script. But what was at its core is they wanted to make a horror short film to raise awareness around the stigma of living with HIV. And then from there it was just a lot of conversation and it was a lot of dialogue and it was a very collaborative process. And we’ve worked on this about a year so it’s very full circle to be here today speaking with you with the finished project because several points throughout this collaboration, it felt like we wouldn’t be able to get it off the ground. There were different iterations of the script, a lot of different casting approaches that we had to take. It felt very fitting that it was going to be a short film, something that I could very much get my hands on.

KARL
Yeah, and as I said, Casey House has a history of doing some really impressive and get you talking water cooler moment kind of things about fighting HIV stigma. We did something with them a few years ago that centered around an episode of “Friends” and “The Office”. What’s the conversation that you hope is sparked when people watch “Others”?

PAUL
Keeping in line with what Casey House has done in the past, to me, there’s always been this very confrontational impulse. And I think with the short film, we wanted that energy to very much be there, to make people feel uncomfortable, but also to I think have people question their own biases or their own stigma, because it comes in such a variety of ways. And the experience of living with stigma is not monolithic. There’s so much nuance, there’s so much shape and color to what that experience means. And I think even for me as a director and the more I understood and the more I got to work with Casey House and speak with their clients, the more I kind of confronted my own misunderstandings. On a, even if it’s a micro level, I think we hope that the audience comes away with wanting to have a conversation and really wanting to confront their own understanding and their own maybe implicit biases regarding what they think they know about the experience of living with HIV.

KARL
I love that you say that, and I love that you acknowledge that this made you sort of think about some of the ways you looked at HIV. And as we always say, it starts with a conversation or an idea, right? And that’s what snowballs into something that can perhaps help change your mind or at least give you clarity or information that you didn’t have already.

PAUL
Absolutely, and some of the statistics and figures that would just come up in this research process, in this conversation process with Casey House, with Bensimon Byrne, I mean, it was so shocking to hear how much has changed, but then also how much hasn’t changed. And I think I realized, you know, you think of yourself as a well-intentioned liberal or you’re progressive and you’re thinking, and then you realize you’ve accumulated a kernel of information, and then that kernel, that seed hasn’t grown ever since. And I’m very grateful for this process because speaking with people who are living with HIV and how they’ve tackled it and what those experience look like, I really, I truly realized how little I knew about that and just all the different levels and all the different nuances. So it was a really humbling and grateful experience on a process level and a product level, as well.

KARL
So then talk us through sort of what the film is about. It’s a short film. HIV itself is never mentioned.

PAUL
Yeah.

KARL
In fact, there’s almost no reference to HIV at all. There’s a few little telltale signs that might link to it and there’s a moment that happens that if you’re sort of in tune with it, you might go, oh, there’s the reference.

PAUL
Others need to vacate the campgrounds by seven. It’s a hazard if you don’t.

KARL
Was that an intentional thing on your part?

PAUL
It was, it was, that was the kind of seed that was there from the very beginning in terms of the idea that Bensimon Byrne had had brought to us, already speaking with Casey House. “Get Out” was a really big reference point in terms of how that was a kind of parable about race. We wanted this short film to be a parable about stigma. And so by naming it, we felt like we would take away some of its shock or power, and we really wanted to hold onto that aha moment because the film is very much about a person, an individual who is trying to live their life as they choose to live it, but then it’s stigma as this kind of malevolent force that is disrupting that life. And every possible sort of space that they enter, small or large, it becomes this overwhelming fear-driven force. And stigma in this film really is the monster, to kind of use the horror trope. And there’s nothing, Peter, the character in the film, he’s really just trying to enjoy a day out with his partner in this film, but it’s stigma, the thing that constantly disrupts that. That stigma isn’t Peter’s problem. Stigma is people who perpetuate stigma. It is their problem, and we very much wanted that to feel part of the dynamic of the film.

KARL
Yeah, well, and as you said, it’s a horror film. and we know that fear is what fuels HIV stigma.

PAUL
Exactly. Fear and isolation, and there were just, there were a lot of sort of core ideas that really would spring up in these conversations I would have with Casey House and clients who are staying at Casey House or have worked with them or volunteered for them. Just a lot of these thematic overlaps, isolation, this fear of other, the importance of allyship, but the difficulty of allyship as well. So we wanted to illustrate those points, those themes, as dramatically and compellingly as we could without depicting an experience of living with HIV as being defined by trauma or fear or violence, because there’s obviously so much more to what it means to live with HIV than to just be in a perpetual state of conflict or-

KARL
Yeah, yeah.

PAUL
Or trauma.

KARL
And the film does it so well, and you kind of make a little history of it here with your lead male character. Am I right in the notes that I read that it’s the first time a professional actor living with HIV has actually been intentionally cast to play an HIV+ lead protagonist?

PAUL
That is correct, yeah. And that was a really important, that was the thing, like, that representation was so much a part of what charged this project, was ensuring that we didn’t compromise on casting our lead and that it was someone who could draw from real lived experience of what it means to live with HIV. And I think that’s what charges it in such an interesting way, that it’s not make believe. That there is a lot of Peter, as much as it’s a make believe, fictional story, on a very microcosmic level, on just a presence and a kind of being and right there in front of the camera, there’s things that if there was an actor who wasn’t living with HIV, they just wouldn’t be able to I think portray or embody. So it was essential from the very beginning that we cast a lead who is living with HIV.

KARL
Yeah, and he does a fantastic job. What’s the reaction been like from people living with HIV and those not living with HIV who have seen it?

PAUL
Really great. We had the opportunity to premiere the film here in Toronto at this really beautiful outdoor event over two nights. There was this experiential component as well. And for me you, making it in a bit of a vacuum, I’m coming obviously from maybe a world of cinema, a world of narrative, but I tell you, Karl, just to see the reaction from people who, it’s just, I could just see it hitting on such a different level, on such a more, not just a cinematic level, but on something that’s so, that feels so much more social and personal because of their lived experiences, because of the relationship with Casey House. To me, it just really illuminated why we wanted to make this film to begin with. And so I was just, yeah, it was really heartening to see.

KARL
The film “Others” is fantastic. I know you’re working on a feature film next called “Import” so we’re all excited to keep our eyes open for that. But Paul, in the meantime, thanks for the great film. Thanks for the great collaboration with Casey House. It’s been good speaking to you, mate.

PAUL
Thank you so much.

KARL
That’s gonna do it for this episode of +Talk. If you want more information about the film “Others”, check out what we’ve put on screen here, and you can also go to the website, pluslifemedia.com, and be sure to follow us, @pluslifemedia, across social media platforms. Until next time, be nice to one other. We’ll see you soon.