We Were Here

WE WERE HERE (trailer) from David Weissman on Vimeo.

We Were Here, 2011

Director: David Weissman

We Were Here powerfully portrays the aids pandemic in San Francisco, tracing the fledging gay community as it emerges, transforms, and coalesces predominantly through the 1980's. The documentary rests on testimony from five veterans of the plague: an artist, a social worker, a nurse, a street flower vender, and a political activist. "None of my friends are still around from the early days, that's why I want to tell their story as much as I want to tell mine," says the artist at the opening of the film.

Director Weissman gives each stage of the pandemic its due. The early sense of freedom on Castro Street, the terrible mystery that shrouded the 'gay cancer,' its devastating development, and recovery. The film confronts the shear sense of loss (15,000+ dead or 50% of the gay population in San Fran according to the film), the anger, the merciless decease in all its grotesque alterations without flinching. But it also documented the humanity that endured and even flourished. By the end, it is clear that all five interviewees, in some manner, are survivors. Whether they outlived their friends, over came limits of bearing for human suffering, or found and could love again, this is the first hand account that summons to the present the voices of those that were here.