Part of the cast of the It's a Sin series.
-
Red Production Company and all3media international
The series
It's a Sin
, broadcast from Monday evening on Canal +, follows a group of friends, mostly gay, in London, between 1981 and 1991, and confronted with the HIV / AIDS epidemic.
"It is an important and necessary series, underlines
20 Minutes
Fred Colby, author of
T'as pas le SIDA, I hope?"
.
It tells the story of the first ten years of the HIV / AIDS epidemic.
That is, the decade of the unknown.
"
"One of the major subjects of
It's a Sin
, it is homophobia, the chappe of lead", underlines Christophe Marter, former president of Act Up-Paris.
Ritchie, Roscoe and Colin are not 20 years old or just.
All come from different backgrounds and all gay, they settled in London to stand on their own feet in 1981. At the same time, a virus appeared which was not long in wreaking havoc within the gay community. therefore to upset the lives of these young men, their boyfriends, their lovers for a night, their friends and their families.
After having met a public and critical success across the Channel last month,
It's a Sin
arrives this Monday, at 9:05 pm on Canal +.
"This is an important and necessary series," said
Fred Colby, editor of
Remaides
, the journal of the Aides association
, to
20 Minutes
.
It tells the story of the first ten years of the HIV / AIDS epidemic.
That is to say the decade of the unknown, the one that we have not seen much in fiction, unlike the 1990s. "
"A story as it was able to unfold for many people"
It's a Sin
is by Russell T. Davis, to whom we owe the resurrection of
Doctor Who
in the early 2000s or, more recently, the dystopian shock
Years and Years
, as well as some of the flagship series in LGBT culture. , including
Queer as Folk
and
Cucumber
.
In 1981, he was 18 years old and so he himself went through the period traced over the five episodes and considers it important to tell it about forty years later.
"I am very aware that the younger generations are growing up ignoring everything about this time," he explains in the press kit.
Let's be honest, even people who lived through those years don't know everything either.
"
Christophe Martet, who was, among other things, president of Act Up-Paris from 1994 to 1996 and in his thirties in the 1980s, confirms: “I have learned things.
For example, that we could, in Great Britain, lock up like that, as we see it in the series, sick people.
I knew it was done in Sweden, which was very strict about it.
"
The one who remains an activist in the fight against AIDS and occupies the functions of editorial director of Komitid, appreciated
It's a Sin
: “It's quite cinematographic and fictional and, at the same time, we can imagine that there is very real facts that are related.
It is important, we must not be in something fantasized.
We are in a story as it could unfold for many people.
"
"It allows us to think"
Russel T. Davis was partly inspired by one of her friends, Jill Nalder - who plays the mother of his fictional double in the series.
"She was more invested than me, she has much more merit in the sense that she spent more time on the AIDS front than me, she held the hands of more dying than I did" , tells the showrunner, still in the press kit.
"Many women have been and still are important in the fight against AIDS and this had not been sufficiently shown", greets Christophe Martet, delighted that fiction has not avoided this aspect.
The character of Jill, played by Lydia West, revealed in
Years and Years
, is arguably one of the most beautiful and striking staged in a series in recent years.
She completes a cast made up of a gallery of gay boys with very contrasting characters, from the most shy to the most exuberant.
Their attitudes oscillate between recklessness, despair, denial… “I have the impression that we are not trying to make heroes out of them, I find that good.
It allows us to reflect, also with younger generations, believes Christophe Martet.
It's not just about telling people about HIV, the deaths, but also what happened, how people reacted.
That's what's important.
"
Through the fates of its main or secondary characters,
It's a Sin
reminds us that the trauma of being diagnosed with HIV was accompanied by multiple repercussions, sometimes dramatic, in the daily lives of the people concerned.
In particular, when their families knew nothing about their sexual orientation.
“When you were a boy of 25, 30, and you said you were HIV positive, that meant you were gay.
It was all the more discriminating as homosexuality as such was discriminated against, ”argues the ex-member of Act Up-Paris.
"How homophobia has fueled the epidemic"
“There were also coming out in death: the family discovered the homosexuality of the deceased at the time of his death,” adds Fred Colby.
“It was common for spouses to find themselves on the street, destitute, with nothing, an erased life, memories and property burned [by the relatives of the deceased partner], resumes Christophe Martet.
It is also the impossible mourning.
If you were HIV negative, your boyfriend had just died, was 30, that meant you were going to live with it for a very long time.
How to mourn if the family rejected you, that you could not attend the funeral?
"
Christophe Martet again: “We can clearly see that one of the major subjects of
It's a Sin
is homophobia, the leaden chappe.
When we watch
The Crown
, we are not aware that Thatcher is introducing violent measures against LGBT people.
Section 28 wasn't two centuries ago; it was forty years ago.
This amendment, adopted in 1988 and definitively repealed in the United Kingdom in 2003, prohibited the "promotion" of homosexuality.
"This thus prevented, among other things, from doing HIV prevention," explains the editor of
Remaides
.
In addition to family homophobia, this institutional homophobia was added.
Guys who die alone are incredibly violent.
The series shows how homophobia has helped fuel the epidemic.
"
It is not "a sin"
This choral fiction, often overwhelming, sometimes funny, always endearing, does not necessarily seem political at first.
However, this dimension lies in the point of view and the way of telling these stories.
Fred Colby, whose autobiographical testimony,
T'as pas le SIDA, I hope?
appeared last year, underlines that "the look of a gay man who lived this period" is "more relevant and authentic" than that proposed for example by Jonathan Demme in
Philadelphia
in 1994. "It was an important film At the time, he concedes, it was the first time that a mainstream feature film focused on homophobia and AIDS, but it has aged very badly and remains a straight look at it. homosexuality.
"
Russel T. Davis, through his mini-series, does his own pedagogical work and under the pop attire of these five episodes punctuated by
eighties
hits
, addresses homophobes, bigots and conservatives.
Evidenced by the title,
It's A Sin
, "It's a sin", borrowed from the Pet Shop Boys, which he never ceases to strive to contradict.
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