A still from Migration

The problem of making a film on HIV awareness must be how to deliver “the message”.

At the screening of four short films on HIV-AIDS at Oxford Bookstore on Tuesday, a section of the audience wondered what the brief given to the films’ makers, all well-known names, was.

The package had Migration by Mira Nair, Blood Brothers by Vishal Bharadwaj, Positive by Farhan Akhtar and Prarambha — The Beginning by Santosh Sivan, shown in that order.

Migration is the story of a man (Irrfan Khan) married unhappily to a woman (Sameera Reddy) and in love with a man (Arjun Mathur). Shiney Ahuja is a building labourer, working near the apartment in which Sameera lives and often weeps. He is married to Raima Sen, who lives in the village.

One day Shiney is working near Sameera’s flat, and asks for some water. The inevitable happens. HIV is transmitted like death in a horror story. At the end, a health-worker at the village hospital where Raima gives birth delivers the message on AIDS awareness.

Blood Brothers by Bharadwaj is a bit of a thriller, so it would be a spoiler to reveal the twists in the plot, but the story is about the evils of a young upwardly mobile media pro (Siddharth) with a lovely wife (pregnant too) and a lovely son, having a casual affair. But what a let-down the film is, coming from the maker of Maqbool. The message is delivered by a person afflicted with AIDS.

Prarambha by Santosh Sivan, featuring Prabhu Deva as a truck driver, starts out well as a robust film with plenty of humour. Prabhu Deva is loud and adorable. So is the kid he takes up. The message is delivered by a headmistress.

What do the messages say? Do not have unprotected sex, beware of one-night stands, think of your family, AIDS doesn’t spread by holding hands. Important information, all of it. But if the vehicle is a film, why can’t it be woven into the story? Why does someone need to spell it out, like a lesson?

Only Farhan Akhtar’s Positive tries to say it in the language of cinema. The film is about the bond that grows between a father (Boman Irani), who was a photographer and a bit of a tyrant and son (Arjun Mathur) through one thing they share: the camera.

Though Akhtar was not paying as much attention here as he would to a full-length feature film, the film is moving in parts.

And the message is quite clear. A film on HIV is a film too, and not a billboard. As with AIDS patients, do not treat them differently.