THE OTHER SIDE OF AIDS International Documentary Competition

In Africa, they tell of a cursed bone that manages to kill its victims with only the power of suggestion. Never mind that the bone’s recipients may be in perfect health-the village treats them like walking corpses, and the weight of fatal expectations eventually does them in.

What if HIV’s influence is similar, asks Robin Scovill’s provocative documentary, and its most ravaging effects are caused by the emotional pressure from friends and doctors to accept a death sentence? Overaggressive medications-likened to shooting bunnies with nuclear weapons-might be the final blow to an already weakened will lo survive.

A devastating indictment of modern medicine, bolstered by interviews with a host of scientists and survivors (some nearing two decades of excellent health), Scovill’s haunting argument doesn’t force an answer on the audience; rather, it aims to replace dogma with the power of unanswered questions.