Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Netflix:Loosely based on true events, this drama follows Ron Woodroof, who refuses to accept he'll die in 30 days when he's diagnosed with AIDS in 1986. He extends his life and eventually helps many other AIDS patients by smuggling medications from abroad.

From the Web: A son of Texas, Ron Woodroof is an electrician and rodeo cowboy. In 1985, he is well into an unexamined existence with a devil-may-care lifestyle. Suddenly, Ron is blindsided by being diagnosed as H.I.V.-positive and given 30 days to live. Yet he will not, and does not, accept a death sentence. His crash course of research reveals a lack of approved treatments and medications in the U.S., so Ron crosses the border into Mexico. There, he learns about alternative treatments and begins smuggling them into the U.S., challenging the medical and scientific community including his concerned physician, Dr. Eve Saks. An outsider to the gay community, Ron finds an unlikely ally in fellow AIDS patient Rayon, a transsexual who shares Ron's lust for life. Rayon also shares Ron's entrepreneurial spirit: seeking to avoid government sanctions against selling non-approved medicines and supplements, they establish a "buyers club," where H.I.V.-positive people pay monthly dues for access to the newly acquired supplies. Deep in the heart of Texas, Ron's pioneering underground collective beats loud and strong. With a growing community of friends and clients, Ron fights for dignity, education, and acceptance. In the years following his diagnosis, the embattled Lone Star loner lives life to the fullest like never before.  (2013.  117 minutes)

DJE: The Dallas Buyers Club highlights the roadblocks the FDA placed for patients to get needed care and the greed of PhRMA and many physician "researchers" who benefited from the drugs they were developing.

Beat the Drum (2003)

When a mysterious illness nearly wipes out his entire village, claiming the lives of both his parents, 9-year-old Musa (Junior Singo) is forced to set off on his own, eventually joining the ranks of the scores of orphans who live on the streets of Johannesburg. Directed by David Hickson, this poignant award-winning film examines the heartbreaking effect that AIDS has had on the poor and underprivileged children of Africa.  2003  113 minutes.  Netflix

DJE:  This is a sensitive film about the scourge of HIV/AIDS in sub-Sahara Africa.  Well worth watching.

Longterm Companion (1990)

From Netflix: This ensemble piece centers on a group of gay men in 1980s New York City whose lives are changed by the puzzling new "gay cancer." The first film to have AIDS as its main subject, Longtime Companion is a powerful mix of historical realism and bittersweet drama. Winner of the Sundance Audience Award and numerous supporting actor awards for Bruce Davison, including an Oscar. 1990, 100 minutes

Recommended by Charles Katz

I Am Because We Are

From Wikipedia: This movie (trailer) documents the concern over the millions of orphans in the African country of Malawi who have lost parents and siblings to HIV and AIDS, many of whom live on the streets. The film also shows the efforts with Madonna's charitable organisation Raising Malawi in helping with improving their lives and conditions.

Madonna said about the film: "To say that this film is a labor of love is trivial. It's also the journey of a lifetime. I hope you all are as inspired watching it as I was making it."
The film is scheduled to be released in 2008 and was described by long-time friend Rosie O'Donnell as "devastating and amazing." Both Madonna and O'Donnell attended a private screening on October 11, 2007.

"I Am because We Are" has not been widely released yet -- updates will be put on this site. It was shown on the Sundance Channel on December 1, 2008, and information about other screenings can be found there.

Angels in the Dust

From Netflix: "In a nation ravaged by AIDS and the aftereffects of apartheid, middle-class Marion Cloete leaves her Johannesburg suburb behind to establish a village and school for South Africa's orphans; Louise Hogarth's documentary chronicles the inspiring story. With help from her family and many others, Cloete's mission is realized in Botshabelo, a traditional African community that houses, nurtures and gives hope to more than 500 children." 2007 95 minutes

This is a fine documentary. Very moving. Many of these unfortunate kids have the virus, too; and they live with graces, smiles and tears in a chaotic loving village that the Cloete's created. This is well worth watching. I got a copy from the Milne library inter-loan. DJE

Yesterday

This is a moving docudrama from South Africa. You can order it from Netflix. It is impossibly sad, but unfortunately speaks truth.

From Netflix: "This heartfelt drama is the first Zulu-language film to be released internationally. Struggling to raise her daughter in a poor African village, Yesterday finds the odds stacked against her when she learns that she's HIV positive. With her husband in denial, Yesterday must somehow find the strength to go on, determined to live just long enough to see her daughter go to school." 2004 96 minutes

This is an online viewer's comments: "I will be candid and divulge my biases. I am a person with AIDS and cancer. I am 55 years old. I have seen most of the AIDS movies, made for better or worse over the years. I have no particular associations with Africa. A rare 10 vote goes to this film because it is, in its absolute simplicity, a perfect primer on the effects of AIDS on plain and simple lives. There are no greeting card sunsets. There are no weepy hand-holding scenes between the rich parent/spouse/sibling and "the victim" on the lawn of a palatial estate in America. There is exhausting repetition of the details of hard lives. There is the mean ignorance of people who see themselves as unaffected and superior. There is the sudden dependence of the counter dependent and unfaithful husband. There is the forgiveness by the infected wife, who already has too much to bear as an impoverished woman and mother. There is her faith, her dedication, her love to the end in a relationship that has brought her own early death. And there is the stark and indifferent beauty of Africa itself, photographed by a lover's eye. There are no surprises here for anyone. This is just a map to better understanding of a largely shared human condition." A viewer from Boston.

Angels in America

Netflix: "Tony Kushner's groundbreaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play (the basis for this 6-hour HBO dramatic miniseries) took more than 10 years to make it to the small screen. Starring Al Pacino (as real-life legal counsel Roy Cohn) and Meryl Streep, Angels is at once heartbreaking and funny as it examines the first few years (the mid-1980s) of the AIDS epidemic against the moral absolutism and unresponsive backdrop of the Reagan Administration." 2003 6 hrs 52 minutes.

Availability: As two DVDs
Milne Williamstown
Neflix