Right to Try

A spirited cancer survivor goes on a spontaneous search for 'The Berlin Patient' - the first man in the world actually cured of HIV.

As a result of the Holocaust and later, AIDS, the male homosexual community has sustained bitter losses and, according to Praunheim, lesbian women have now placed themselves at the head of the so-called queer movement. The female protagonists in the film represent two different generations; they also incorporate the past and present status of homosexuals in society.

Cancer rears its head in the lives of Raymond and Raymond, a gay couple that have already had to deal with HIV/AIDS for many years. They find themselves having to reinvent their lives within a circle of friends and relationships that is not always so easy to redefine. A simple and moving story of an attempt to rebuild lives.

Daily spleen, drunkenness among friends, conversations and the passage of time: the video diaries composed by Lionel Soukaz chronicle the early 1990s, the comet tail of those never-ending winter years and the nightmare of the AIDS years. But edited thirty years later with Stéphane Gérard, they are also a tribute to Hervé Couergou, the beloved partner at the center of all the filmed scenes. Slowly, in conversations between couples and friends, the dandy spirit and intimate confession overlap. What emerges is a portrait of a way of dealing with the times and their pain, which, beneath the act of commemoration, seeks to inscribe a living presence.

The story of musician Thomas Muchimba Buttenschøn - born HIV+ in 1985 - and his crusade to use his music to wipe out AIDS in his native Zambia and beyond.

Les grands reportages - Morts sur ordonnance

One of the earliest documentaries to deal with AIDS.

Voices of Positive Women is a ground-breaking documentary examination of the impact of HIV and AIDS on the lives of women working from material published in the book "Positive Women", a collection of personal accounts of women from all over the world living with AIDS and HIV. Bravely sharing their experiences publicly in what until now has been a void of information and support, and in some cases medical and bureaucratic denial that women are even at risk, the nine women presented in Voices of Positive Women speak compellingly on their own terms of their personal struggles for survival and voice.

A powerful story of loss, stigma, friendship, and being alive! "I will speak, I will speak!" tells how five HIV-infected men and women from Zambia (Lusaka), Russia (Moscow), the USA (San Francisco), Cambodia and England brave life while infected with the deadly virus.

Thumbsucker - Behind the Scenes

Pigerne på Halmtorvet

A documentary film that tells the story of the Peter Kruger Clinic (PKC) – one of the first HIV/AIDS clinics in the United States, which was established at Beth Israel Hospital in 1989. Started during the height of the epidemic in New York City, PKC boldly stood against the stigma of the disease and served as a beacon of hope and a model of care for those New Yorkers diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. This powerful film traces the clinic’s origins and its impact over the last 3 decades, as told by the patients and staff that have called it home.

Sex Positive explores the life of Richard Berkowitz, a revolutionary gay S&M hustler turned AIDS activist in the 1980s, whose incomparable contribution to the invention of safe sex has never been aptly credited. Mr. Berkowitz emerged from the epicenter of the epidemic demanding a solution to the problem before the outside world would take heed. Now destitute and alone, Mr. Berkowitz tells his story to a world who never wanted to listen.

Outraged by the controversial January, 1988 article in Cosmopolitan magazine, the women in the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, (Act Up, New York), organized the first AIDS demonstration focused on women. Doctors, Liars and Women:AIDS Activists Say No To Cosmo not only documents the efforts of the Women's Committee to organize this protest, it also serves as a how-to-guide for direct action.

A documentary film about AIDS and one unconventional woman's efforts to educate her small, Southern community. DiAna DiAna is a local hairdresser who transformed her beauty parlor into a center for AIDS and safe sex information.

Women who are HIV-positive discuss how they "came out" about their infection and became politically active.

Stiff Sheets indicts public health officials and politicians for the lack of adequate and humane care for people with AIDS in Los Angeles, this time documenting a mock fashion show staged by ACT UP activists.

A look at the ACT UP movement from its inception to the present day.

An exploration of the interconnected experiences of queerness and illness, this film navigates personal and collective journeys through medical spaces, sexual violence, and survival, displays the profound impact on body and identity.

This film tells the story of the unknown pre-history of the AIDS virus, long before people started to die in the US and Europe. Following a team of scientists we uncover a forgotten medical archive in the Democratic Republic of Congo, that tells of an epidemic a full two decades before anyone knew about the novel killer. From high-tech labs in the US to African medics who have their boots on the ground, we trace HIV back to its origin in the jungles of Cameroon. In the decades around the turn of the 20th century, colonialism fundamentally changed the lives of millions of people in central Africa; it created an environment that allowed HIV to leave its original host, the chimpanzee, and start to spread in humans.