We Are Together: "we cannot all shout at the same time, but we can sing together"

Paul Taylor takes a tragic story and makes an up-lifting, life-affirming, non-preachy film.

We Are Together (Thina Simunye) has as its backdrop one of the most urgent (and shameful) issues of our time: the spread of HIV, Africa's 1.2 million AIDS orphans and the lack of access to life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. That less than 17% of HIV sufferers have access to the drugs in a continent already overwhelmed with famine, poverty, war, corruption and hoards of western Celebrities (collective noun - 'a reception'?) is so hard to comprehend it's generally much easier to pretend it isn't happening.

But rather than focus on the issues we all too often chose to ignore, we are offered the African approach to dealing with suffering: celebration, communion and song. Humanity's 'incredible capacity for laughter and humor' in these situations was a driving force for Taylor in his tale of the child singers of the Agape orphanage in South Africa.

Rehearsing, recording a CD with alocal pop sensation  and preparing for a trip abroad in the face of some bloody cruel twists of fate, the focus is less on the tragedy of the situation for these parentless children, but rather the hope and joy that song can bring. As someone says in the film, 'we cannot all shout at the same time, but we can sing together'. And all the way through this sense of togetherness, a social glue, holds the community through the some tragic moments.

It's a roller coaster of a film - one moment my spine was tingling from the sounds of the singers, the next humbled by the impressive unconditional love (Agape) of the orphanage's head Zodwa Mqadi. Then I'm crying for the sick brother, and next raging at the injustice of the situation - a total abandonment by the rest of the world - and in particular pharmaceutical giants who seek to make massive profits from the life-saving drugs. The needless deaths from a Western created disease is its own kind of laissez faire genocide.

And when the kids finally arrive in the west, having their first snowball fight and marking out an Africa on a large snow globe ('this is Africa where everyone is dying') we see one well meaning person after another get a photo opportunity with these poor kids. There's press shoots, styling, celebrity hugs and matching outfits and suddenly it's a Benetton advert and I'm on the edge of my seat - surely we haven't just watched the modern equivalent of self-righteous missionary / child slavery - to pluck children out of poverty, give them a taste of a different life, feel better about ourselves and send them home with a signed photo of Paul Simon, while we enjoy their amazing music. The rage is boiling, and I'm already eying up the computer monitor to my left and the chair I'm sitting on to trash the delegate centre.
 
Suffice to say no mindless acts of violence occured, for whatever happens, these kids win. "My happiness will be my only revenge" as someone once said. You only need to look at the faces of the westerners in this film in comparison to the singers, who live with song, to recognise how much richer they are, in spite of everything.

Its a film that every child and adult in the country should see and made me want to sell my posessions, give the money to African projects and take up singing lessons.

 All profits from the film - including money distributor EMI makes from accompanying CD/DVD - will be given to the Agape project. More info from wearetoegether.com