Blood Brother ( U.S. Documentary Competition) Rocky Braat. Photo by John Pope. THE GOALS Recent advances in AIDS treatments have made it possible for the orphanage to provide the children with anti retroviral (ART) that can extend their lifespans to virtually normal. Wonderful as this is, it has created a new set of challenges for Rocky and the kids. Now that some are living past the age that the orphanage is allowed (by government mandate) to keep them, how are they going to be able to survive on their own -- when they can only work for a limited time before they are so exhausted they must stop? When there is so much misinformation about HIV and AIDS that, if they are ‘outed’ as being HIV Positive, they will be fired from most jobs? When for most of their lives, the idea of a future was a painful one, and planning seemed a futile endeavor? Rocky’s answer lies in two areas: the first is in improved education for the children and computer training which is in a huge boom in India currently (a challenge, as they have been kicked out of schools in the past due to the stigma surrounding HIV). Computer training is a huge part of this-- the tech sector of India is booming. The second answer is in halfway houses, where they can live and learn to integrate with the world beyond the orphanage. Any proceeds from this film will go toward the building of halfway houses and skills training for the children featured, as well as funding for other organizations helping children for whom the same issues apply via Arms Around the Child, an organization fighting for children to be happy and whole. Through the film, we hope to generate and fund these new projects, and then return to India in order to document directly the impact that the supporters of Blood Brother have had. To this end we will be submitting the film to film festivals, seeking distribution and television and creating a movement around the rights of children. © 2013 Blood Brother. All rights reserved.
Blood Brother directed by Steve Hoover, 2013 Sundance Film Festival ( U.S. Documentary Competition) Rocky Braat. Photo by John Pope. Rocky Braat lies, sweating, on the floor of a concrete hut. There is the incredible heat of the Indian noon and the ineffectual squeak of the ceiling fan stirring the hot air. He has just returned from America, where visa issues forced him to stay for two months. The children he spends his days among as an amateur dentist, cook, and brother are only a five minute walk across a field and down a red-dirt road, but his fever, and the manner in which HIV has devastated their immune systems keeps him away. In the night he listens to the rats banging around in his metal locker and the bugs skittering across the floor and the ineffectual squeaking of the fan and wonders if tomorrow infection will break out, if next week a small boy will go completely blind, if next month his visa will be denied again, and he’ll have to leave India and live in much more agreeable climates where people he loves do not die as easily as the wind changes directions.
ACT V and THE RED HOT ORGANIZATION present an ANIMAL Production “ BLOOD BROTHER ” A Documentary Directed by Steve Hoover 2013 Sundance Film Festival, Official Selection
BLOOD BROTHER (U.S. DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION): FILM CLIPS (VO): " Clip #1" - " Clip #2" -