We Were Here

I saw this film as part of the Ghent filmfestival 2011. At the time of this story (the 80's) the AIDS epidemic was something we read about in newspapers and magazines, at a safe distance so to speak. What I remember most was the long time it took before the underlying causes became clear. There were several theories at first, because no one could find a common denominator for two target groups that suffered most: hard drugs addicts and homosexuals. Nowadays, it is easy for us to see the connection as being obvious.

What we easily overlooked at that time was the impact it had on people that were hit, in combination with the hopelessness of their situation in the absence of a cure. Two quotes I can't wipe from my mind: [1] "Can't go on like this" at a moment that many friends and acquaintances died, without any effective remedy in sight. And quote [2] "Don't want to come out of this war like my father came out of the war he fought in", as if wondering how the world would be after this bad interval was over, and whether residual trauma's were to be expected. Not only quotes like these, but also the honest stories told by survivors that were interviewed, certainly left an impression on us.

All in all, I could do nothing more than giving the maximum score (5 out of 5) for the audience award when leaving the theater. We saw a very comprehensive overview of how people (re)acted on the disease, presented by all sorts of people involved. It also makes us think about possible new diseases that may befall on us. For example bird flu (H5N1) springs to mind, due to a recent publication about related work in Rotterdam (NL). While imagining that such a virus breaks loose, either this one or a new one for that matter, it is difficult to suppress post-apocalyptic visions about what may happen.

I was 18 years old when I went to Greenwich Village in 1985 to attend school at NYU. Before that, I had never been acquainted with the gay community and only knew closeted and frustrated gay people. My eyes were opened when I got there, in a wonderful way. But AIDS had beat me there and I remember the profound fear and controversy that was unfolding at the time.

This movie made me think of those days like I hadn't for years. It is an incredible, moving story which shows how much of a Holocaust the epidemic was. It is heartbreaking and poignant, with personal stories and compassion shown by the individuals involved which are heroic and inspiring.

I found this movie to be an important contribution to a period of American History that musn't be forgotten. I found myself shocked all over again by how widespread and devastating the epidemic was, how it was ignored and feared by a homophobic nation. I wonder how different our world might be today if we hadn't lost so many wonderful, creative young people to this plague?

AIDS survival has come a long way, but the disease is not gone. People really should rent this movie, it's like lighting a memorial candle of sorts. You will remember someone who is gone that touched your life in a special way.

Kate Menz Riggs/Welte Humanities II 5 March 2016 We Were Here Review

This documentary has powerful insight about LGBT rights and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. It is a very heart touching documentary of four gay men who lived and survived through the entire HIV/AIDS epidemic and are here now to share not only their stories, but all of their friends' and families' that died from this horrible, extravagant disease. In the 1970's, San Francisco was the place all gay men wanted to go. There were streets dedicated to them such as Castro Street and gay sex was highly encouraged, it was a place for gay people to really live, and these four men and directors, David Weissman and Bill Weber give a phenomenal look on what it was really like. When the "disease that hit the gays" hit San Francisco it hit hard. The four men will say "people dropped like flies," and the depth and detail their stories provide people with a true visual of the catastrophe. One step at a time, the sense of community grows larger and larger in not only the gay people that were getting sick, but the thousands of volunteers spending their time to help them. This film gives you a real perspective of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and really how the LGBT community was affected by it. We Were Here will offer the true inside look on the AIDS epidemic.

I didn't know my eyes could produce this many tears. It's the most effective talking-heads documentary I've ever seen. Forget the cloying trash that they make today about the AIDS epidemic. This is the real deal.

Beautiful documentary gamely attempts to tread through the chaotic AIDS crisis of the 1980s using only a handful of survivors as commentators. Co-directors David Weissman and Bill Weber pull it off, however, and "We Were Here" is surprisingly absorbing and moving as a result. The celebration of sexual freedom for homosexual men in the 1970s ground to a halt at the end of the decade by what was initially being referred to on the street as the Gay Cancer. These wonderful men who survived to tell their individual, intimate stories are marvelous to listen to, painting a portrait of an era that was, by turns, frightening and challenging, yet one that brought out a number of true heroes. ***1/2 from ****