Director Jared Frieder is changing the narrative around queer sex, shame, and HIV
Troye Sivan-starring Three Months, which was warmly received when it began streaming on Paramount+ in February.From first-time feature writer-director Jared Frieder, Three Months is a different kind of “HIV movie,” one that uses hopefulness and humor to depict the realities of living with the virus in the modern day, while still acknowledging how the AIDS epidemic ravaged the LGBTQ community in the ’80s and early ’90s.As Frieder told Queerty ahead of the film’s release, an HIV diagnosis is “no longer a death sentence with adequate healthcare,” and his goal with the film was to remind younger queer viewers that they’re not alone, no matter what they might be going through.Three Months takes its title from the length of time one has to wait to test for the virus after exposure, but the irony is that the film took much, much longer to bring together—nearly a decade, in fact.
While not autobiographical, Frieder has shared it was loosely inspired by the emotional truth of his personal coming-of-age story, and the first version of his script was written some years ago.Since then, it has landed on the prestigious Hollywood Blacklist in 2015, was momentarily re-tooled as a streaming television series, and then reverted back to a film format when it found a home with MTV Entertainment Studios and their platform, Paramount+.
