Fig Trees (2009)

Name: Fig Trees
Genre: Documentary, Music
Released: 2009-02-09
Duration: 100 min
Cast: Van Abrahams, Zackie Achmat, Stephen Chen, Ezra Perlman, Ashton Williams

2009 · 100 min · Documentary, Music · ★ 5.0

English Documentary Music

FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills, Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy, and thus, no more opera.

Director: John Greyson

Cast: Van Abrahams, Zackie Achmat, Stephen Chen, Ezra Perlman, Ashton Williams, Denise Williams, David Wall, Deborah Overes · Poori cast & crew →