EMI sings praise of 'Together'

Documentary focuses on AIDS orphans

By ADAM DAWTREY

Crowd-pleasing is too weak a word to describe "We Are Together," a documentary about a choir of AIDS orphans from South Africa which has become a phenomenon on the global festival circuit in the past year.

Made for just $200,000 by a pair of British film students, the movie has scooped up 13 audience awards and other prizes at 30 fests all around the world.

At Amsterdam's Intl. Documentary Film Festival in November 2006, it got the highest score in the event's history. It won the popular vote at Tribeca last May, and at Edinburgh in August it beat out the likes of "Ratatouille" and "Control" for the public prize. Its IMDb user rating stands at 9.0, on a par with "The Godfather: Part II."

Now, finally, "We Are Together" is ready to test its pulling power at the box office. EMI, in tandem with Shooting People Films, is launching the film into U.K. cinemas March 6, alongside a soundtrack CD which goes on sale March 3. The release is being supported with a barrage of publicity from the (RED) campaign, a celeb charity for AIDS awareness.

Palm Pictures recently picked up the movie for North America, and plans to open it there in May ahead of an HBO premiere later this year.

It's a labor of love for everyone involved. All EMI's profits, as well as those of director Paul Taylor and producer Teddy Leifer, are going back to the Agape orphanage in KwaZulu Natal, whose inmates are the subject of the doc.

Taylor first encountered them as a 21-year-old studying TV production at Bournemouth U., when he spent a vacation as a volunteer at Agape. After he went home to his studies, he resolved to go back and capture the children's stories on camera.

He and Leifer, a friend from Bournemouth, returned the following summer. It took them three years to shoot the movie, amid finishing their studies. "We were still students, so none of the usual financiers would back us," Taylor says. "We put a lot on our credit cards, raised other loans, and because we were pledging to donate our profits, we got a few thousand from charities. But really we just scraped along for a long time."

Their story gradually focused upon one girl, Slindile Moya, who was 12 when filming started, and her vocally-gifted family of nine siblings, struggling with the illness and eventual death of elder brother Sifiso while trying to stage a fund-raising concert for the orphanage. Pic climaxes with a triumphant show in New York.

"I knew the character and the personality of the kids, so I knew enough stuff would happen that would give arcs and narrative. But we had no idea we would come across Slindile and the Moya family. And although I knew music would be part of the film, I definitely didn't realize how significant the music was. It was the way she remembered her  parents," says Taylor.   

Jess Search of the Channel 4 British Documentary Film Foundation saw the potential in their footage and gave them a budget to polish it into a movie. "Trainspotting" editor Masahiro Hirakubo came aboard, and Dario Marianelli, an Oscar winner last week for "Atonement," wrote the piano score for free after seeing a rough cut.

Despite all its popular prizes, it's still been a long haul for San Francisco-based sales agent Annie Roney to line up distributors. Taylor explains, "People think, oh God, it's another film about orphans, AIDS, African kids, it's going to be depressing, something you have to see because it's worthy, not something you are going to enjoy."

EMI's DVD topper Stefan Demetriou was hooked after witnessing the "amazing reaction" at a Tribeca screening attended by Bono and Alicia Keys, who appears in the film. "The core message is about what a powerful healing force music is. We are a music company, so I felt we just had to be involved," he recounts. EMI needed no persuading to donate its profits to charity. "When you see the film, it's just one of those amazing experiences -- you want to help the kids have their voice," Demetriou explains.