Dateline, San Francisco. Time, early 1980s. A flourishing gay community is hit with an unimaginable disaster.
We Were Here is the first documentary to take a deep and reflective look back how AIDS attacked San Francisco, killing more than 15,000 people. This gripping movie explores the impact of, and responses to, that calamitous epidemic.
The film focuses on five individuals. All of them lived in San Francisco prior to the epidemic, and all of them found their lives changed in unimaginable ways when their beloved city changed from a hotbed of sexual freedom and social experimentation into the epicentre of a terrible sexually transmitted plague.
Their stories illuminate the larger themes of that era: the political and sexual complexities, the terrible emotional toll, the role of women – particularly lesbians – in caring for and fighting for their gay brothers.
With its mix of the personal and the elegiac – and conveying in a visceral sense the horrors of the disease – the film speaks to a human capacity to rise to the occasion. It reveals the incredible power of a community coming together with love, compassion, and determination.

Awards:

Academy Short-List Nomination, Best Documentary, 2012

Sponsored by Parents of Friends of Lesbian and Gay (PFLAG); PARN - Your Community AIDS Resources Network; Peterborough Collegiate Vocational School Gay Straight Alliance (GSA); Peterborough PRIDE; Rainbow Service Organization (RSO)