In 2015, the National AIDS Memorial and the HIV Story Project launched an AIDS oral history project titled ‘Surviving Voices.’ Ten years later, the project continues to ensure that the stories and lessons of the HIV and AIDS crisis are captured, curated, and retained for future generations.
Jörg Fockele, the visionary director behind Surviving Voices, continues to selflessly devote his time to this project each year, traveling nationwide to interview individuals and groups impacted by the ongoing HIV and AIDS crisis.
Ahead of the premiere of Surviving Voices: HIV Lifetime & Long-Term Survivors on June 5th, 2025, at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco, we interviewed Jörg about what has compelled him to work on these films for the past ten years.
1. What made you first want to work on Surviving Voices?
When we created the first video of what ended up becoming the full series “Surviving Voices” this was only supposed to be a one off: The San Francisco Leather Community was going to be honored for their contributions to the early fight against HIV at the National AIDS Memorial’s World AIDS Day Commemoration in 2015. And we had some money available to produce an introductory video to precede the actual award presentation. At that event a member of the Hemophilia community came up to us to let us know how much they had appreciated the video and to express their desire to have a similar documentary made about their own struggles and triumphs. We took their request to heart, and in 2016 focused on Hemophiliacs. I believe it was at that point that we realized that we were onto something that might lend itself to be a continuing oral history and video storytelling endeavor.
2. Why do you think it is important to continue sharing stories about the HIV and AIDS crisis?
As we know, the AIDS crisis is far from over and yet the government is cutting programs and with some younger people you might as well talk about the Bubonic Plague, AIDS seems so far and distant to them. We need to remind people that the epidemic and the cruel reactions to it happened and that in some communities both in the US and in other parts of the world they are still reality today. If we’ve learnt anything it’s that humans don’t seem to learn and history repeats itself. So we’re fighting that with “Surviving Voices” by preserving the first person stories of those of us who lived (and live) through the crisis.
3. Why are Long-Term Survivors a group that you were interested in highlighting for this chapter?
Ever since we started “Surviving Voices” in 2015, HIV Long-Term Survivors (including the Lifetime Survivors) have been part of the project as you can find them in all demographics we’ve covered: Whether it’s the Leather Community, the Black Community, Trans Community, Latinx, Women, or APINH folks just to name a few. So while we do have quite a list of other communities and demographics we would like to cover in future chapters of “Surviving Voices,” the Long-Term Survivors have always been on our minds. And as this community is aging (we just lost two very dear members and long-time activists, Michael Siever and Nilda Rodriguez) it felt more urgent than ever to preserve their memories and stories now.
4. Why do you think that the interview/ documentary format is an important medium to use when sharing these stories?
I think it’s very simple: Facts, statistics and numbers are important but they don’t reach people’s hearts. By letting the people directly affected by HIV and AIDS tell their own stories - both of the struggles but also their triumphs - we’re making it easier for audiences to be touched and reached.
5. Are there any moments from this year's filming that made the project particularly rewarding for you?
I don’t know about more rewarding than this project is actually every year, but there were two things that stood out for me this time:
One was that during the filming of the interviews for Surviving Voices we lost not one but two members of the Long-Term Survivor Community in the Bay Area whom I personally knew and interviewed in the past. If we needed a reminder that the crisis is far from over, this was it.
Second I learnt early on that even within the forgotten and abandoned demographic of Long-Term Survivors there was another hidden demographic that was completely ignored and underrepresented until just recently: The Lifetime Survivors, the babies born with HIV in the Eighties and Nineties that are babies no more. They are grown up now in their 30s struggling with the same issues as many of the Long-Term Survivors who contracted HIV as adults and are now in their 60s and 70s. We are trying to right that wrong by including them in this year’s chapter of Surviving Voices and we expanded the title to “Surviving Voices: HIV Lifetime & Long Term Survivors."
Learn more about Surviving Voices
