We Were Here documents the arrival in San Francisco of what was then called the “Gay Plague” in the early 1980s. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic, as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed.
Early in the epidemic, San Francisco’s compassionate, multifaceted, and creative response to AIDS became known as “The San Francisco Model.” The city’s activist and progressive infrastructure that evolved out of the 1960s, combined with San Francisco’s highly politicized gay community centered around the Castro Street neighborhood, helped overcome obstacles in a nation both homophobic and lacking in universal healthcare. In its suffering, San Francisco mirrors the experience of so many American cities during those years. In its response, The San Francisco Model remains a standard for attaining a healthier, more just, and more humane society.
We Were Here focuses on five individuals, all of whom lived in San Francisco prior to the epidemic. Their lives changed in unimaginable ways when their beloved city changed from a hotbed of sexual freedom and social experimentation into the epicenter of a terrible and largely mysterious plague.
Watch Thursday, June 14, 2012 at 9pm.
