Tiberah Tsehai, TsehaiNY.com
Published October 1, 2008

Using Film to Teach

Mehret, who uses film to teach, says that media influences outcomes and can change the perception of the masses on issues.  “Film can get people to a common place.  The things I try and teach about, like race, gender, class, power and how this relates to HIV sometimes requires a leap for people to understand so, a common place is useful for a productive teaching discussion.”  During her residency, she started to use a film called A Girl Like Me, made by Kiri Davis,to teach about the profound effects of race.  “I will never forget the physician’s responses to the film.  It changed the nature of the teaching session completely.  That’s when I knew I had found a powerful tool for my work.”    

The use of film as health awareness also comes with many challenges.  “Awareness is only going to take you so far without a mobilization plan that capitalizes on the opportunity to teach.”  Mehret says this is why it is so important to think about message framing and what you are asking of audiences when making a film.  “For me I approach film from my medical anthropology background so it’s the actual process of listening to unheard voices that represents the greatest potential of film to teach.”   Mehret is thankful for her post doctoral fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholars Program that has paid for her to get formal training in film and editing production classes.  “The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has been very supportive of all my efforts to use media as a tool for public health.”   Mehret hopes to use film and her comfort to teach the public about how to engage and advocate in healing our world.

A Production Still From 'All of Us' [Photo: Jennifer Kennedy, Amani Willet, Anna Wolf]

These days, among many other things on her to-do-list, Mehret has been working nonstop to create an action plan for the audience of All Of Us in the form of a free online course through the Columbia School of Public Health.  “There is an opportunity to build a much needed social justice movement around human rights and health.  That’s what TruthAIDS  is all about.”   

All Of Us, a feature-length documentary, was filmed as part of Mehret’s internal medicine residency research project at Montefiore Medical Center.  During Mehret’s research, she learned that marriage was a risk factor for women contracting HIV internationally.  “This is when I realized that the epidemic was about ‘all of us.’  The risk that flows from norms and institutions like marriage has everything to do with conversations about trust on a personal and societal level that often involve women being deceived or exploited.”  It was while Mehret was being filmed that she learned about making a film.  “I was working with a filmmaker named Emily Abt who taught me a lot about what it takes to make an honest film.” 

Mehret describes making a film as a very intimate process that creates trust between people.  During this process, Mehret says a bond is created.  “There is nothing more vulnerable than putting yourself in front of a camera.  The exchange of ideas and experiences lived between the subject and camera creates a bond of trust that becomes sacred.”  What amazed Mehret was the way patients opened up their lives and homes to the camera.  “I was even more amazed that Sister Zebider did the same in Ethiopia after having had a particularly bad experience with another American camera crew.”  Mehret believes there is a real obligation to do right with this trust and maintain the integrity of what people share with you in good faith, even if “telling the truth takes battle,” another lesson she learned.  “This project has shown me that social justice is fighting work and media can be used to unite a fragmented social justice movement to do this work.”  Mehret says TruthAIDS is the army she is building to take these lessons to the next level.  “It’s a movement now and there is work to be done.”   

Mehret is the founder of TruthAIDS, a preventative health non-profit organization that uses media advocacy to teach.  “Physicians started TruthAIDS and as doctors we realized not a whole lot of people had really been listening to the patients we were serving.  If they had, there is no way domestic violence, for example, could have been missing from the HIV prevention messages.  Addressing the infidelity that happens within marriages was also missing from the messages.”  Listening is what TruthAIDS does best, Mehret explains, and then follow-up on the listening with a program, or advocacy piece using participatory media and documentation.  “The potential lies in teaching others how to listen and engage.”  David the Piano Player is a film and multimedia project Mehret is currently directing for TruthAIDS. 

An upcoming short film titled Dr. Mehret features a book, and an online correlate, among many other things.  The film is being made by Kidane Mariam, an Ethiopian filmmaker, who was in the audience when Mehret was speaking at the Left Forum this year.  “The project started after an actress in the UCLA Masters of Fine Arts Degree program chose to do her thesis play about my life and work.  She read about me in the media and came to interview me and my thoughts on HIV and women in the African Diaspora.”  The actress wrote and performed a play that talked about Mehret’s work from the perspective of an African, a healer, and an American.  Mehret flew to see this play and was incredibly moved by it.  “A friend who was with me for the play and an esteemed filmmaker in his own regard, Julian Breece, was equally impressed with her performance and agreed to film it.  Out of this project, the Dr. Mehret project was born.”  Kidane has been following Mehret for about 6 months and they are scheduled to take their first trip to the continent together this fall.  The whole point of the project is to highlight Mehret’s work and the people she meets through it, and to continue doing this work of “movement” which Mehret calls building.  “A movement is built out of authentic connections and untold stories.”  

Mehret’s most recent work includes working with boys and men on the issue of domestic violence in Philadelphia.  “We can scream all we want about women’s rights but until we get men involved in the problems affecting women, the violence will not change.”  She has been working with the Community Research Group at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health and is devising a course on Mass Collaborations that is going to put into effect all she has learned.  Mass Collaborations is a free course and anyone interested in public health, solidarity, human rights, and HIV can email info@truthaids.org to join.  

Five years from now, Mehret hopes to be teaching, writing, filming, and seeing patients.  “TruthAIDS continues to grow and is partnering with the public TV channel in Philadelphia to start programming around the societal determinants of health.”  Mehret has also started a Living Links project with the A. Toni Young of the Community Education Group, which is all about connecting Africa and America. 

“I think the confluence of media, public health, advocacy and human rights is where I will be for the long haul.” 

For more information on Dr. Mehret Mandefro visit www.drmehretmandefro.com.