Sinners’ Disease

Filmmaker Jan Jaap Kuiper follows militant mother-to-be Sasha Volgina. This 31-year-old activist is one of the many HIV-positive Russians. Antiviral medicines are scarce in Russia, however, and without them Sasha’s child, too, could be infected at birth.

More than one million Russians are HIV-positive, most of them not older than 35. Russia has the fastest growing AIDS epidemic in the world. Information is hardly available, let alone sufficient medication for those infected. Due to a lack of information and openness about the disease, it is widely considered as a punishment for drug addicts. Many young people became addicted to heroin at the end of the nineties as a result of the social and economic downturn in Russia. Many of Volgina’s peers are former addicts, like herself, or still on drugs. Together with a group of activists, Volgina attempts to persuade the government to put sufficient medication at the disposal of all HIV-infected people and to prevent them from being stigmatized. Meanwhile, she prepares for parenthood.