Thembi Ngubane was a young woman who became famous through the American National Public Radio show Thembi’s AIDS Diary: A Year in the Life of a South African Teenager.. She was vibrant, punchy, full of life. She recorded the consultation when, as a doctor, I started her on antiretroviral therapy in 2005. Jo Menell’s documentary film, Thembi, gives a sensitive and nuanced account of her fast rise to fame, culminating in meeting Barack Obama and addressing the US Congress, and then equally rapid fall into oblivion, loss from care, and death.
