PRNewswire - November 10, 2005

ATLANTA, Nov. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars(R) this year, the HBO Films presentation of YESTERDAY will have its Atlanta Premiere for invited guests at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, November 10 at the Woodruff Arts Center's Richard Rich Theatre. The premiere of YESTERDAY, about AIDS in Africa, will be hosted by HBO and Comcast, in partnership with AID Atlanta, the Woodruff's Celebrate diversity through the Arts and the National Black Arts Festival. YESTERDAY will debut on HBO on Monday, November 28 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).

Sanctioned by Nelson Mandela and the Nelson Mandela Foundation, YESTERDAY is the first major film for international release to be shot completely in the Zulu language. It was shot on location in the Kwazulu Natal and Gauteng in South Africa in October, 2004. This dramatic film was written and directed by Darrell James Roodt, and produced by Anant Singh and Helena Spring, the creative team responsible for "Cry, the Beloved Country" and "Sarafina."

Set in contemporary South Africa ten years after the arrival of democracy, YESTERDAY is a story of courage, compassion and hope that puts a human face on the politics and statistics of the AIDS crisis, following the struggles of a young mother named Yesterday who has been diagnosed with AIDS. Leleti Khumalo ("Sarafina") stars in the title role of the film.

Yesterday lives in Rooihoek, a remote village in South Africa's Zululand. Her everyday life is not easy: There's little money, no modern conveniences, and her husband is away in Johannesburg working as a miner. But she possesses a sunny nature, and takes great joy in her seven-year-old daughter Beauty (Lihle Mvelase).

The precarious balance of Yesterday's life is suddenly threatened when she is diagnosed with AIDS and must journey afar to understand and confront her illness. Yesterday's primary driving force is Beauty, who is a year away from starting school. Yesterday never had the chance to go to school and she sets her sights on a single goal: to be with Beauty on her first day of class, along with all the other proud mothers.

An important factor in the rapid spread of AIDS in Africa is the tendency among many Africans to have more than one sexual partner at the same time, an activity described as "concurrency" as opposed to the "serial monogamy" more frequently practiced in Asia and the West. While "concurrency" has in part a cultural basis, it has been exacerbated by poverty, as well as the cruel history of Africa, when white settlers took the most fertile land and poor black men from the villages had to travel great distances to find work. Over these long separations, new relationships developed.

In South Africa, the situation became even direr under apartheid. The Bantu Authorities Act of 1951 created ten African "homelands," effectively making black people nonresidents of South Africa. As these "homelands" were lacking in natural resources, virtually all the village men had to leave to work elsewhere. This is vividly illustrated in the story of YESTERDAY, as Yesterday's husband leaves her to work in the mines of Johannesburg.

But the causes of AIDS in South Africa are not limited to sexual practices. "Under apartheid, everything was separate," says writer/director Singh. "They had separate health programs, separate schools, and so on. The new government is only ten years old and they've inherited this whole legacy of migrant labor, poverty and substandard health care, which they now have to try and deal with. It's a tough challenge that South Africa, the continent and the whole world have to deal with."

AIDS is currently the leading cause of death in Africa, and 56,000 Africans die each week. Southern Africa has about 30% of the people living with HIV/AIDS, while it has less than 2% of the world's total population. The latest global reports estimate the total number of adults and children with HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa as 25-28 million. That number is expected to rise to 30 to 35 million by the end of this decade. Sub-Saharan Africa is the worst infected region in the world with over 3 million new infections and over 2 million deaths in 2003. There is only one doctor for every 18,000 Africans.

Following the 93-minute screening of HBO Films' YESTERDAY, there will be a conversation drawing the parallels of HIV/AIDS in the American South and in South Africa. Angela Robinson, Host of WPBA-TV's "In contact" will serve as moderator with Thadeka Tutu-Gxashe of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health; Eva Hansen of AID Atlanta, a retired school teacher who has survived HIV for over 23 years and Phebe Gribble, a native South African and a Hubert Humphrey Fellow at the Rollins School of Public Health.

Sources: The Centers for Disease Control, Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, E-Heatlh, UNAIDS & World health Organization, CNN.com, 365GAY.com.

SOURCE HBO

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