Berlin International Film Festival 2000

Christy 'Chrissy' May Napier grew up in the suburbs of Perth, Australia. A rebellious teenager, she ran away from home and was only 18 when she was diagnosed as HIV positive.

Chrissy kept her condition a secret from her family for eight years. In 1997, Jacqui North (who had become Chrissy's best friend) set out to make a film about her. The result is very different from the "dry educational documentary" which North originally envisaged.

In the course of the film, which was shot during the last year of her life, Chrissy revisits and makes her peace with her mother and sisters.

North doesn't sentimentalise or moralise. Above all, she wanted to avoid the stereotypes of women with HIV/Aids as "virgins, vamps or victims". She left it to Chrissy to decide when and where to shoot. The irony, North suggests, is that even though she was making a film in which her best friend died, "I had made a very positive film. Chrissy in the end had what she wanted. Her voice... speaks for change, knowledge and understanding for everyone living with the HIV/Aids virus."