Santo Domingo, November 18, 2011

“Ticket to Paradise” - Interview with director, Gerardo Chijona

The Cuban film “Boleto al Paraíso” (2011), is Gerardo Chijona’s first drama after three comedies, and a drama it is…based on a shocking true story of a group of teens who infected themselves with the HIV virus to get into a hospital where their lives would be easier than they were living on the streets.

The film showed this week at the UASD as part of the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival (DRGFF). In 1993 Cuba, as a severe economic crisis rages, Eunice runs away from her small town and her sexually aggressive father. With nowhere to go, she joins up with a group of homeless teens hitchhiking to Havana. Eunice feels an instant connection to charismatic ringleader Alejandro. But her damaged past and his preoccupation with his dead-end existence stand in the way. Desperate, with no opportunities to improve their lives, the two consider taking extreme measures to reach an unlikelyparadise an AIDS hospice.

Based on a true story
Chijona’s film is based on a true story when, between 1992-1993, a group of 60 teenagers infected themselves with the HIV virus in order to be admitted to the Santiago de las Vegas Hospital where they would be well cared for. They were operating under the mistaken premise that within a couple of years there would be a cure for AIDS. “When we decided to make the film in this style, we knew we were dealing with real life stories and we wanted the film to have the docu-drama character,” said Cuban director, Gerardo Chijona, who also works at the Cuban Institute of Art and Film Industry (ICAIC in Spanish) with whom the DRGFF recently signed a collaboration agreement.

Why drama and why now?
“The idea to make this film walked through my door one night under the arm of my old friend, Dr. Jorge Pérez [former director of the Santiago de las Vegas AIDS Hospital]. He was carrying the manuscript to a book he just finished called ‘AIDS: Confessions of a Doctor.’ We’ve been friends for years and he asked me to read his manuscript and make comments and suggestions. I read the whole manuscript that very night and immediately knew it was going to be my next movie. The problem was figuring out how to tell the 20 or more stories in the book. They were all moving, passionate, gut-wrenching and some so strong as to be almost sinister. But, of course, no book is automatically ready for the screen. There is a process of elaboration that involves writing a treatment then a script,” explained Chijona who added that throughout the entire process he relied on the permanent advice and counsel from his friend, Dr. Pérez.

Eventually, Chijona decided to combine the stories from the book into one story. He said the stories were “an explosive mixture of innocent, inexperience and ignorance of teens from violent or dysfunctional families.”

Chijona explained that of those 60 teenagers who went into the Santiago de las Vegas Hospital, 30 are dead and the rest left the hospital to live with family when it was closed in 1994. Today, in Cuba, there are some 11,000 cases of HIV-AIDS.

The film looks at the beginning of the HIV virus in Cuba although it is more than that. It is about exclusion, isolation and love.

“I wanted to transmit to the Cuban people a reflection of why what happened came to pass and that no one opened the door to these young people,” said Chijona.

He added that he feels the film, and himself, have been well received at this 5th edition of the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival.