Absolutely Positive Pilot

When a naive college student, a charming playboy, and a millennial couple receive unexpected health results, they must navigate and re-evaluate every new decision they make while battling the newfound stigmas now at the forefront of their lives. As they’re confronted head on by their futures, will they decide to hide their secrets in solitude and shame, or trust the path that life will lead them down, whether they’re ready for it or not?

Based on the 2013 award-winning short film of the same name, Absolutely Positive is a modern-day ‘edutainment’ series pilot depicting what it’s like to live with HIV. Reimagined to include diverse representation in story and character, ABPOZ breaks the stale narrative that HIV is an 80s and 90s, terminal disease confined to only the gays, and shows what living and thriving with HIV really looks like. New infection rates keep rising and no one’s talking about why. Absolutely Positive isn’t scared to.

It only takes one person. It only takes one time. Can you ever be…Absolutely Positive?

  • Anthony L. Williams
    Writer
    Thicker Than Blood (feature); Thicker Than Blood 2 (feature); Absolutely Positive (short); Closet Case (feature)
  • Matthew Buckley Smith
    Writer
    Dirge for an Imaginary World; The Major, The Minor, The Living, The Dead
  • Project Type:
    Television Script
  • Genres:
    Drama, Comedy, Public Health, LGBTQ, Pilot, BIPOC, Queer, Television, Series, Feature
  • Number of Pages:
    87
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • The Script Lab Screenwriting Competition

    August 12, 2020
    Quarterfinalist Round
  • 2013 HIV Care Continuum Initiative of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy Meeting, White House, Washington DC
    Washington DC
    July 15, 2013
    Personal invitation to White House
  • World Music & Independent Film Festival
    Washington DC
    June 1, 2013
    Best Director in Short Film
  • World Music & Independent Film Festival
    Washington DC
    June 1, 2013
    Best Actor, Actress, and Dramatic Film (Nominations)
Writer Biography - Anthony L. Williams, Matthew Buckley Smith

Founder of Second Glance Productions, Anthony L. Williams is a performer, educator, and award-winning director, writer, and producer.

In 2024, he was the 1st Place Winner in IL LGBT Chamber of Commerce’s entrepreneur ‘Biz Boot Camp,’ and his newest queer dating docuseries, "It’s Not You, It’s Me," was a festival winner at both the Cinema WorldFest Awards, Creation International Film Festival, and received the Honorable Mention award at the Various Artists Independent Film Festival. In 2021, he won 2nd place in the Flip the Script Competition for his TV pilot, "Heartstrings," which also claimed 1st Place in London & Lisbon’s 2024 Sunday Shorts Film Festival and was selected in the Chicago Script Awards and Toronto Lift-Off Film Festival.

His critically-acclaimed feature film, Thicker Than Blood, garnered awards for "Best Director” and "Best Feature Film" in 2019. TTB's impact campaign continues to foster conversations through LGBTQ and African-American nonprofits, HBCUs/universities & teaching hospitals, medical and faith-based organizations, and state and local health departments in nearly 30 major cities nationwide.

His film, Absolutely Positive, holds nominations for Best Short Film, Director, Actor, and Actress at the World Music & Independent Film Festival and earned him a personal invite to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative at the White House in 2013. Now developed as a scripted series, the pilot advanced to the Quarterfinalist round in the 2020 TSL Screenplay Contest.

Having produced content for HGTV, the History Channel, National Geographic, A&E, The Travel Channel, Food Network, Investigative Discovery, and more, no matter the storytelling medium, Anthony takes pride in creating memorable media that pushes boundaries with purpose and on purpose. And with every story he tells, his mission is to ‘edutain’ and inspire viewers at first glance, while provoking deeper thought, conversation, and connection upon ‘second glance.’

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Writer Statement

Mainstream television’s landscape for devoting storylines to people of color living with HIV is virtually nonexistent. Stories that are at the forefront still focus on HIV from the 1980s and 90s point-of-view. Without current day examples, society’s view of HIV and its medical advancements have been stunted by outdated information, misrepresentation, and continued stigma and discrimination.

With a story structure inspired by Shonda Rhimes’ “How to Get Away With Murder,” the pilot for the drama series, Absolutely Positive (ABPOZ), derives from my 2012 critically-acclaimed, award-nominated short film of the same name, based on the same characters. In the midst of witnessing the film’s impressive impact on audiences, and off the heels of it reaching representatives at the Centers for Disease Control and a personal invite to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy Initiative at the White House, I recognized the need for these kinds of stories and representation of these intersected communities.

Re-developed as a diverse and inclusive narrative television series, the pilot for Absolutely Positive advanced as a Quarterfinalist in the 2020 TSL Screenplay Contest. Displaying a truthful insight into the many worlds and faces of HIV, it strikes an empathetic and understanding chord that helps break the stigma and myth that HIV is just a ‘gay’ disease, and rather shows it for what it really is — a human disease that has no limits and knows no bounds. ABPOZ sheds light on the importance of personal accountability, provides an opportunity for education prevention, and serves as a tool to reduce stigma, defunct decades of societal misconceptions and discriminations, and helps guide society away from the outdated knowledge of the 1980s and into the medical and societal advances of the 2020s.

With ABPOZ, I aim to: a.) break the misconception of HIV being a “gay disease” of the past and work to change the narrative by including transgender and cisgender heterosexual black women in the conversation, and b.) call into question the discrimination and shame continually sown into BIPOC communities around HIV/AIDS, cyclically breeding lack of education and sexual self-care, closeted lifestyles, internalized stigma, and dangerous playing fields for everyone involved. What someone doesn’t know CAN hurt them. And with mainstream media heavily influencing our beliefs, values, and lifestyle choices, it directly impacts how we perceive the world and those around us.

It only takes one person. And it only takes one time. Can you ever be…Absolutely Positive?

View the ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE short film here: https://youtu.be/nvvDyYg4wYg