short horror film ‘others’ takes inspiration from stigma against hiv

"[we were told] no one wants to come out for this role, because they don't want people to know that they are living with hiv."

by emma jones

published oct 31, 2022

last updated feb 02, 2024

6 minute read

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6 minute read

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short film ‘others’ takes inspiration from stigma against hiv

'others', a slow-burn short horror film, explores the terror caused by stigma and what it means when someone cannot trust the kind gestures of strangers. supplied

stigma. it’s not something you would expect 40 years into what casey house ceo joanne simons refers to as the hiv pandemic. that 40 years represents decades of scientific advancements and educational outreach, to show the public the truth about living with hiv. but, as members of the casey house community explained at the others premiere on wednesday, misinformation and hostility is still all too common. individuals living with hiv are twice as likely to have depression, due in large part to the stress associated with living with the diagnosis, according to the national institutes of health. stigma has also been associated with creating barriers to treatment, care and support services and causing patients to develop internalized stigma — both of which can result in higher levels of anxiety, lower quality of life and lower adherence to antiretroviral therapy.

others, a slow-burn short horror film, explores the terror caused by stigma and what it means when someone cannot trust the kind gestures of strangers. healthing sat down with director paul shkordoff to talk about approaching this short movie and how the fear of stigma played a very real role in its development.

this interview has been edited for length and clarity.

how did you first get involved with the movie?

so bensimon byrne agency had sketched out an idea of a short horror film that they wanted to make to raise awareness, surrounding the stigma of living with hiv. they brought that project to opc — a commercial production company that i work with. my background is in narrative film and, just as i was beginning to develop my relationship with opc, this project came across the desk. it was perfect timing; i had really only [just] made that decision to enter a more commercial space and then, two weeks later, this project came in. it just seemed very fitting that it was a narrative piece.

you mentioned it took about a year from concept to final film — what was the development process like?

a lot of time and effort went into the film [and] a lot of conversation. there was an original script that we were gearing up, we had sign off from casey house, i had pitched it to the board, we were going to shoot it in february [but] casting was just so tricky. it really was something we couldn’t rush or compromise on. so, as much as we were all eager to bring the film to life, we knew we couldn’t compromise on having our lead actor be someone who was living with hiv. and that took a lot of time.

once we found peter [mcpherson], we wanted to adjust the story. we completely threw out the old script because we wanted to craft a story that felt closer to — not necessarily peter’s experience — but who peter was as a person. [a story] that didn’t feel like we were asking him to reach outside of his comfort zone in terms of the character he was trying to portray. we really tried to create a space where he could bring as much of his own experience to the film.

how did you approach fleshing out a story on the stigma people living with hiv have experienced, while still being respectful?

i think it was just really collaborative. i wasn’t familiar with casey house before this project, and i’m really grateful that i learned about casey house because i think their role in the community is so inspiring. just one of empathy.

i had the opportunity to go to casey house early in 2022. covid-19 was still on the horizon. i think an omicron wave had just passed and they had set up — as safe as they possibly could — the opportunity for me to speak with clients of theirs who were staying at casey house. and we just had a conversation. i was telling them about the film and asking them, does it feel truthful?

does that feel real? but also, just letting them speak and trying to reflect back the many experiences that i had the opportunity to learn from and hear about through casey house.

it was one of those things [where] everyone’s experience is so different, especially when you get into intersectionality and things like that. we could only tell one story, but even through something very specific you hope that it stands in for something universal in terms of what that experience feels like, of the stigma of living with hiv. there were commonalities that were popping up among other people’s stories and experiences: isolation, this fear of the unknown, what kind of danger a stranger presents to you, the importance of allyship, the difficulties of allyship and your friends and family who maybe support you or don’t support you. we really tried to incorporate those things as best we could into the story, because we did want it to feel reflective of what that feels like without necessarily being overly grim or dramatic. i think there’s so much more to what it means to live with hiv than to just be defined through the stigma itself.

one of the goals for this film was to have a lead protagonist who lives with hiv. how did you go about that?

we reached out to casting agents that opc had a relationship with. we casted in canada, across the country. but then we started to reach out to casting agents in the u.s. and all the big markets in new york and l.a., and europe as well. it was just proving how necessary the film was, because there was a stigma that we were constantly coming up against from casting agencies. [we were told] no one wants to come out for this role, because they don’t want people to know that they are living with hiv. they didn’t want to carry that stigma with them as a result of taking the role. it was so eye opening; it really just proved how necessary the film was.

i think it took us seven months before we finally found peter. we wanted to find someone who understood the role and had the performance experience as well. it is a subjective character study; he’s there in every scene. it was a tall order. i think casting is always the trickiest thing when it comes to making a film, and when we found peter [it] just felt like a real eureka moment.

how did you approach filming, knowing that these are very real experiences vulnerable populations have experienced?

by the time you get on set, you hope you have done your homework and you are trusting all the preparation that you have done. the script went through a lot of different iterations, but also passed through a lot of different hands in terms of having a lot of different sets of eyes, both within bensimon byrne and opc, but also casey house. not just people who work at casey house and have served on the board, but clients and people who volunteer [with] and have used casey house.

i think if you are careful and considerate with how you are preparing for a film, it is easier to trust when you are on set the day of.

for the documentary stuff, it was the same thing. i had the opportunity to have a pre interview, meet with all the subjects [and] just walk them through what the process was going to be. you are asking them really personal questions, and they are sitting on a stage with a bunch of crew looking at them, [there are] two cameras — it is innately the most uncomfortable space to have a conversation with someone. but, really, [i] just tried to give them the floor. i told them that it’s not about the questions. it’s not about trying to shape the conversation in any way. it was just giving them the space and the time to speak about whatever it was that they wanted to speak about, in terms of how they chose or chose not to bring certain awareness to the experience of living with hiv.