AIDS Awareness

Part one follows the trail of a medical mystery which began in 1981 when five gay men in Los Angeles were diagnosed with a deadly new disease. Traces the international response in the first years of the epidemic, contrasting moments of inspirational leadership with the tragedy of missed opportunities. Reveals the astounding spread of the infection to over 70 million infections in 2006. Part two explores the chasm that emerged between rich and poor following the development of the miraculous "triple cocktail" HIV treatment. While the discovery seemed to signal a new era in which AIDS was no longer a fatal disease, the high price of the drugs meant they were unaffordable to patients in developing nations. Also examines the next wave of the AIDS epidemic in some of the most populous and strategically important nations in the world, including Russia, India and China, and tracks the same pattern of official denial and political indifference that characterized the epidemic in so many other countries.

David Weissman's We Were Here revisits the San Francisco of the 80s and 90s, using the city's experience with AIDS to open up a conversation about both the history of the epidemic and the lessons to be learned from it. Yet the film reaches far beyond San Francisco and beyond AIDS itself as it illuminates the power of a community that comes together with love, compassion, and determination.