Award Citations
“Fire in the Blood is truly outstanding. The real story of the struggle to make HIV and AIDS drugs available and affordable for the world’s poor, is nothing like the headlines we’ve read. It is both a heart-breaking and a heart-warming story all in the same film and it is elevated by exceptional access to captivating moments of deep humanity and emotion.
In exploring the macrocosm of big industry and the microcosm of individual people Fire in the Blood makes clear that we are all responsible for this crisis and there is something we can do to influence change. […] The fight continues, not just for AIDS but for all diseases – watch this film!”
2013 DOXA FEATURE DOCUMENTARY AWARD jury citation (full citation here), DOXA Vancouver
“This critically important film demonstrates that the struggle to bring affordable life-saving medicines to those in desperate need is an ongoing fight. It emphasizes that the countries of the Global South are helping each other. The filmmaker brings the story home with interviews that cut across the boundaries of race, class and nationality.
Ultimately the film raises the real questions of the value of life and compassion versus the marketplace. These questions are framed in terms of HIV/AIDS and the developing world, but they are the questions that should face all of us everywhere.”
2013 JUSTICE MATTERS AWARD jury citation, 27th Washington DC International Film Festival
“This film is about AIDS in developing countries and the fight for affordable medicine. The western pharmaceutical industry prevents the manufacture of generic (affordable non-brand name) drugs and decides who may live and who must die. The omnipotence of the industrial associations (in this case the WTO – World Trade Organisation) is very well researched and made appallingly clear. A film that serves as a call to arms.”
Excerpt from the inaugural FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FILM jury citation, Filmfest Hamburg 2013
“An amazing feat for a first-time filmmaker who organises well-researched and compelling evidence to expose how the corporate world of pharma is complicit in the genocidal murder of those who are priced out of existence. Its direct approach builds an argument that is not only striking, revealing and outrageous, but simply necessary. The jury wishes to add that had this not been a first-time film, we would have still found a way to award it.”
2014 DADASAHEB PHALKE CHITRANAGARI AWARD FOR BEST DEBUT FILM jury citation, Mumbai International Film Festival