Director says he paid vulnerable young men for sex during AIDS project

Director Staffan Hildebrand says he paid young men for sex while working on a global HIV and AIDS documentation project, SVT reported. In the documentary Document inifrån: Pojkarna – regissören och sanningen, he said the men were vulnerable and that some were involved in the project.

Hildebrand said he could not promise that none of the people he had sex with was underage, though he did not think any were. He said the encounters often involved young activists in poor countries who were connected to the project, and that he gave them money. He also said he had paid young prostitutes for sex while working on the project.

In 1987, Hildebrand was assigned to film and document the spread of HIV around the world under the auspices of Karolinska Institute. The work continued for more than 30 years and became part of the Face of AIDS archive, which contains nearly 800 hours of documentary footage.

Karolinska Institute said its ethics committee had considered the archive in 2022 and 2026. The university said it knew of no information that people appearing in the films had been subjected to the acts described, and that it had received no such information connected to the collaboration.

The institute said it strongly condemns all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse. Its current leadership was not involved in making the films and has no first-hand knowledge of the circumstances. The archive is mainly used for research and education; sensitive material is not publicly available and may be accessed for research only after relevant ethical review.

Hildebrand acknowledged sexual abuse in 2021. Karolinska Institute added a statement distancing itself from sexual abuse to the archive’s website at that time.