{"id":12518,"date":"2016-02-25T15:22:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-25T23:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=12518"},"modified":"2023-09-29T10:50:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T17:50:20","slug":"june-cross-tells-the-story-of-a-family-fighting-hiv-in-south-carolina","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/june-cross-tells-the-story-of-a-family-fighting-hiv-in-south-carolina\/","title":{"rendered":"June Cross Tells the Story of a Family Fighting HIV in South Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"

June Cross, who has two national Emmys and two duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards to her credit and is the founder of the Documentary Program at Columbia University\u2019s Graduate School of Journalism, has always been interested in documenting families and issues of public health. Both converge in the most moving of ways for her new film Wilhemina’s War<\/em><\/a>. One of Cross’s previous films,\u00a0The Old Man and the Storm<\/a><\/em>\u00a0for FRONTLINE, followed the travails of an extended New Orleans family for three years after Hurricane Katrina, and she returns to the South to show a widespread\u00a0disaster of an entirely different kind: HIV. <\/span><\/p>\n

Wilhemina Dixon, an African American woman in South Carolina raises\u00a0her granddaughter Dayshal, who was born with the virus, while also nursing her ailing daughter Toni, a drug addict. Through it all Wilhemina’s resolve remains strong and determined. It’s the story of a state and a place that may not be doing nearly enough to fix a health crisis, but also of a woman who is doing all she can do to fight through it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Cross talked to us about why she wanted to make this film, how she got to know Wilhemina and her family, and how she hopes the film will open some eyes.<\/p>\n

Why did you want to make this film? <\/b><\/p>\n

To bring awareness to an epidemic many people think now exists only in Africa \u2013 HIV \u2013 and its devastating impact on the African American community, particularly in the American South.<\/span><\/p>\n

How did you connect with and gain the trust of Wilhemina and her family?<\/b><\/p>\n

A former student of mine, Lisa Desai, first met Wilhemina and Dayshal, and made the introductions. Lisa\u00a0had a very close relationship [with them], but then she had to move on to other projects when I ran out of money. At that point, it was on me. \u00a0There were several hurdles I had to overcome with Wilhemina and her family: I\u2019m a light-skinned, educated woman, and Wilhemina had felt\u00a0that my type was more likely to judge than embrace. I gave her the respect she was due. I called her \u201cMiss Mina\u201d and still do \u2013 she is older than me. I listened to her problems even when cameras weren\u2019t rolling. I cared. Same thing with Dayshal, who was much harder to crack \u2013 there were generations, not just class and education, between us. But I believe in Dayshal. Still do. I pray that this film empowers her to spread her wings and fly.<\/span><\/p>\n

And why did you\u00a0want to make Wilhemina and her family the main characters of your film? Since of course there are other people in similar predicaments in the South. <\/b><\/p>\n

We had as many as five characters at one point. For various reasons, they dropped away \u2013 moved, died, or weren’t comfortable with the access required. And Wilhemina wanted to have us tell her story.<\/span><\/p>\n

What were some of the biggest challenges you faced in making the film?<\/b><\/p>\n

Raising the money and believing that I could even finish it. Two years went by and I didn\u2019t get a positive result from over two dozen grants. That turned out to be a good thing, because I had to dig back into my rushes, and back to my characters, and give them more agency in telling their own stories. It also required me to find a depth of determination I didn\u2019t know I had in myself that this story was important even if those who were screening it in its incomplete phase couldn\u2019t see it.<\/span><\/p>\n

[Another challenging moment\u00a0was when] I really wanted to get the point of view of the medical personnel in the nursing home where Toni died. We tried multiple times. They gave us the same runaround they gave Wilhemina. Toni was there under hospice care, and the hospice subcontracted to the nursing home. But within a year they broke off the relationship, and refused to say why. Since these are all private organizations, it would have meant doing a separate film to uncover it all, and at the end of the day I decided the larger public health story of Wilhemina and her family was more important.<\/p>\n

[And] the day we melted the camera \u2013 this was the same day we met Chamalla, actually. It was 96 degrees by 7:30 a.m.; 115 by noon. The motherboard of the camera melted. Also I suffered a vitreous detachment that day and couldn\u2019t focus the camera. My eyes remained cloudy for about ten days before I finally figured out something serious was amiss!<\/p>\n

Do you have a favorite scene in Wilhemina’s War<\/em>, or one that especially moved or resonated with you?<\/b><\/p>\n

Meeting Chamalla, the young woman who was planning her own funeral at the wake for Toni, was by far the most devastating scene I shot. I had done stories like this with young gangbangers in Detroit; but to meet a young woman with two kids essentially committing slow suicide was more than I was prepared to handle. <\/span><\/p>\n

Can you give us a follow-up on how Dayshal is faring these days? I know you’re in touch with her, but the audience I’m sure would love to know. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Dayshal just texted me this morning that she dropped out of her GED class because she was having difficulty keeping up. I’m not sure if she’s ever been tested for dyslexia, which Wilhemina has; she said she was having trouble with the reading, and she also didn’t have money for gas. So we’re hoping that good things will come to her as a result of the broadcast.<\/span><\/p>\n