by James Olsen for FILMbutton

We Were Here

Director: David Weissman

Cast: Eileen Glutzer, Paul Boneberg, Guy Clark, Daniel Goldstein, Ed Wolf

In We Were Here, Weissman introduces us to five people who were in San Francisco when the AIDS epidemic began. In one way or another, each was affected with the changes to the world around them. Eileen was a nurse and initially one of the few willing to stay by the sides of men dying from AIDS. Guy sold flowers and watched as familiar faces either got sicker and sicker or stopped coming around altogether. Daniel is an HIV+ artist, and Paul and Ed are community activists.

Starting with initial diagnoses of Karposi’s Sarcoma, through “gay cancer”, and eventually to recognizing AIDS as something altogether different, we see through the personal stories as well as archival footage and newspaper clippings how hysteria and blame were common-place, before mostly giving way to logic and medicinal research. We are shown how politicians like Lyndon LaRouche were quick to go for ideas including mandatory testing, quarantine of anyone infected, even visible tattoos for people to recognize them by.

While the history of AIDS is full of tragedy, it has also brought out the best in many people. As the gay men of San Francisco were getting sick, the lesbian community organized a Women’s Day Blood Drive to donate as much blood as possible to the cause.

In the 1980’s, as their own were getting struck down, they were there. Today, we have made great strides forwards in North America in terms of both societal acceptance and medical treatment options. However, we still have politicians on the far right that strive to knock us back to the days of fear and ignorance. Fortunately these are in the minority, but it shows that the fight still goes on in even the most developed of countries.

A must-see film to get touching looks at the history of the AIDS epidemic, bring some tissues when you watch this. For a brief period of time, these five people’s lives become our own, and it’s impossible to walk out and not feel both devastated for the loss that has been suffered and yet hopeful for all the progress that has been made and is still to come.

James Olsen is an avid photographer who loves film, TV, music and just about anything in the arts. He hails from out East but calls Toronto his home.