WATCH: Young man’s despair & rebirth following HIV diagnosis challenges stereotypes in artistic new film
Latino Rebels.The filmmaker channeled those early fears into a short autobiographical film entitled De Gris A POSITHIVO (From Gray to POSITHIVE) to address the ongoing stigma and silence surrounding HIV.With the proper treatment and care, people with HIV can live a normal lifespan.
Unfortunately, de la Mar initially received some reckless advice. His Bogota doctor told him he needed to moisturize because “people like you get their skin all dry and gray.”“That comment destroyed me.
I sat all afternoon on a park bench to cry,” de la Mar added. “Then I started looking at myself in the mirror all the time. I was afraid that I was actually going to turn gray, that it would show, that everyone would notice just by looking at me.”After getting on antiretroviral therapy (ART), de la Mar became undetectable (meaning the amount of virus in the blood is too little to be detected by tests), but still worried he would never find love or be comfortable having sex again.
According to de la Mar, the concept of undetectable = untransmittable, or U=U, is not widely explained in Colombia “because they think people would get too relaxed and would care less about their health.” U=U means that people who maintain an undetectable viral load cannot sexually transmit the virus to others.He began doing research outside of Colombia and came across sex-positive literature.
