1. That Child with AID$ (Aquela Criança com AiD$)
That Child with AID$ tells the story of Brazilian advocate and artist Lili Nascimento, who was born with HIV in 1990. Lili has worked to expand narratives about living with HIV beyond the limited images and ideologies that permeate the AIDS industry.
It has an average vote of 10 on TMDB.
2. Heart Murmurs (Heart Murmurs)
Heart Murmurs is a poetic dialogue between the filmmaker and Dean, a young man living in Hong Kong. In reflecting on his experience living with a congenital disability and HIV during the first years of the COVID pandemic, Dean expresses his sense of self in the face of regular medical challenges.
3. This Bed I Made
This Bed I Made presents the bed as a place of solace and agency beyond just a site of illness or isolation. Through the shared stories of two Filipino men living with HIV, the video explores modes of care, restoration, and abundance in the midst of pandemic pervasion.
4. Losing the Light
Losing the Light reflects the artist's bitter battle to stay in this world as a long-term survivor of AIDS who has lost his vision to CMV retinitis. An experimental self-portrait, the video evokes the dissolution and fragmentation of the artists body, representing the impact of blindness, long-term HIV infection, and the cumulative effects of decades of antiretroviral medication.
5. Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool
A musical documentary accompaniment to the 1994 benefit compilation album concerning AIDS in the African-American community.
6. A Time of Change: Confronting AIDS
Seminal documentary featuring interviews conducted with early AIDS patients at San Francisco General Hospital's wards 67 and 5B in 1983. Friends, family, health care workers, and caregivers contribute to the narrative as a generation of brave, young men face a terrifying disease with grace, humor, and dignity.
7. After Goodbye
Award-winning actress Ruby Dee narrates this powerful documentary about the impact of AIDS on the families, friends and members of the acclaimed Turtle Creek Chorale. In the past decade, 145 member of the Chorale have died, most from HIV and AIDS. Although grief is a constant presence, After Goodbye: An AIDS Story shows that the singers and their loved ones are also engaged in a continual process of healing. This ultimately uplifting and inspirational video is a testament to the amazing strength of the human spirit.
8. Like a Prayer
Produced by the activist video collective ACT UP/NY called DIVA TV , this tape analyzes the collaborative demonstration "Stop the Church" by WHAM! and ACT UP/NY on December 10, 1990, against Cardinal John O'Connor and the Roman Catholic Church's murderous stand on abortion rights, safer sex, and homosexuality.
9. AIDS Inc.
AIDS, Inc. is a film about the multi-billion dollar AIDS industry, and how it profits from continuing fears and misconceptions about the disease.
It has an average vote of 1 on TMDB.
10. General Idea: Art, AIDS and the fin de siècle
"GENERAL IDEA: Art, AIDS and the fin de siècle is a humorous, informative and ultimately poignant documentary about General Idea. Formed in 1969, they produced art that targeted and mimicked media, consumerism and celebrity, creating a revolutionary new spirit of art making. Interviews with AA Bronson, the sole survivor of the trio, lends personal relevancy to this story of art and sexual politics. GENERAL IDEA: Art, AIDS and the fin de siècle is a tale of love, fame, overwhelming loss and, ultimately, renewal."</p><p> -AGO.net
11. Sensaciones - La historia del Sida en la Argentina (Sensaciones - La historia del Sida en la Argentina)
Fictionalized documentary about the history of HIV/AIDS in Argentina from its inception up until 2006.
12. Beat Goes On
Beat Goes On is an impressionistic portrait of the activist Keith Cylar , co-founder of Housing Works and a central figure in the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power NY. Cylar spoke clearly, frequently and with moral force about the struggles of people living with HIV/AIDS in New York City, many of whom were impoverished and struggling with multiple social and medical problems. His openness about his own drug use and the centrality of the fight against the criminalization of drugs for AIDS activism make Cylar's legacy especially resonant and relevant at this time.
13. Call Me Uncle (Call Me Uncle)
Tanzanian queer singer Tofa Jaxx in conversation with HIV/Trans activist Aunty Ali, exploring issues of sex work, gender and being out.
14. Freddie Mercury: The Final Act
The story of the extraordinary final chapter of Freddie Mercury’s life and how, after his death from AIDS, Queen staged one of the biggest concerts in history, the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, to celebrate his life and challenge the prejudices around HIV/AIDS. For the first time, Freddie's story is told alongside the experiences of those who tested positive for HIV and lost loved ones during the same period. Medical practitioners, survivors, and human rights campaigners recount the intensity of living through the AIDS pandemic and the moral panic it brought about.
It has an average vote of 6.5 on TMDB.
15. Killing Patient Zero
After the Stonewall riots and at the height of the gay liberation movement in America, an entire generation were busy celebrating their newfound emancipation, unaware of an impending epidemic. A disease that seemed determined to wipe out an entire generation of gay men, was largely ignored by politicians and the mainstream media. Gaetan Dugas was a French-Canadian flight attendant, who offered to help early scientific research into the origins of AIDS. An unfortunate series of events followed and he would be vilified as Patient Zero, the man who gave us AIDS.
It has an average vote of 5.857 on TMDB.
16. Reframing AIDS
Through a series of interviews with leading British AIDS activists and cultural theorists, this documentary investigates the way in which AIDS has been used by the media and by the government to increase state harassment of gay men and lesbians, black people and women. Framing the problem in terms of a left politic, the tape reveals how both homophobia and puritanism have been responsible for the slow government response to AIDS.
17. AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman
Seizing her power as she confronts her mortality, trailblazing trans activist Connie Norman evolves as an irrepressible, challenging and soulful voice for the AIDS and queer communities of early 90's Los Angeles.
18. Disco: Soundtrack of a Revolution
From the sweaty basement bars of 70s New York to the glittering peak of the global charts, how disco conquered the world - its origins, its triumphs, its fall and its legacy.
19. Think About the Beautiful Future Ahead (Pensa Num Futuro Bonito Pela Frente)
Historically, the queer community has not been portrayed in mainstream culture as being capable of protecting children and young people. Yet my uncle Ricardo, himself an openly gay man, was the ultimate guardian of my childhood.
20. AIDS: What Everyone Needs to Know
The film provides information about the course and symptoms of AIDS, the effect of AIDS viruses on the immune system, the routes of infection, the main risks of infection and the protective measures against them.
