Positive

Duration: 84

Year Published: 1990

Creator: First Run/Icarus

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: Positive, the second part of Praunheim's AIDS trilogy after Silence=Death and before Asses on Fire, focuses on the activism of the gay/lesbian community in its fight against the epidemic and government neglect. A collage of street demonstrations, rallies and damning footage of President Ronald Reagan and New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch is conjoined to portraits of three gay men who have tested positive for the AIDS virus - journalist/filmmaker Phil Zwickler, writer/activist Larry Kramer and singer/songwriter, Michael Callen. Zwickler, Praunheim's collaborator, conducts on-the-street interviews at the AIDS Walk and the Gay Pride Parade and challenges the inaction of Mayor Edward I. Koch at a City Hall press conference. Larry Kramer, founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis and later, ACT-UP, directs angry tirades against the conservatism of the GMHC and government bureaucrats who obstruct access to new and potentially helpful drugs. Michael Callen sings his own compositions and conducts PWA teas in a church for people seeking friendship and sex. Praunheim's film also features a scene from Robert Chelsey's play, Jerkers, in which two men establish contact through the highly popular phone sex phenomenon, a performance piece by Diamanda Galas whose brother died of AIDS, and clips from Zwickler's safe sex feature Chance of a Lifetime and his 1986 film, Rights and Reactions, documenting the hearings on New York City's Gay Rights Bill. The film concludes with the triumphal storming of the AIDS Conference in Montreal by ACT-UP and other groups and an AIDS rap song performed by city teenagers.