ShortList 2019: ‘Departing Gesture’ Director Brian Bolster Casts Cold Light on AIDS in the Deep South (Video)

While working on a documentary feature about AIDS in the American South, Brian Bolster stumbled upon a funeral director in Jackson, Mississippi, who has ensured that people who died of the disease get a proper burial — even when family members abandon their bodies. Bolster’s encounter with Ralph “Trey” Sebrell, director of Jackson’s Sebrell Funeral Home, formed the basis for his documentary short “Departing Gesture,” a finalist in TheWrap’s ShortList Film Festival. Bolster, who also made the 2015 ShortList with a previous documentary short, “One-Year Lease,” was drawn to covering AIDS in the South after seeing the disparity between urban centers and rural areas in the level of care and education available. Also Read: ShortList 2019: Jon Frickey's Animated Identity Tale 'Cat Days' Began With a Sick Day in Japan “We think [AIDS] is under control here, and in many ways, it is, because of access to treatment,” Bolster said. “The epidemic has just shifted and transformed to the South where… some doctors don’t even know what PrEP is,” he added, referring to pre-exposure prophylactic medications that HIV-negative people use to prevent infection. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 52 percent of new HIV diagnoses in 2017 in the...

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