- Community (Program One)
- A look at the ways that many societal issues - including race, class and gender - affect the lives of people who are living with HIV and AIDS. Men and women in Harlem reclaim former crack houses to provide housing and HIV/AIDS services in their community. A young Asian American man writes to his mother, revealing his positive status and asking for her continued love. A former HIV/AIDS caseworker in Austin retires when his own T-cell count falls. An eight year-old girl in suburban Detroit shares her thoughts about her HIV positive parents.
- Identity (Program Two)
- Living with HIV not only brings about changes in one's lifestyle, it also means a continual reassessment of one's worth and of what is important in one's life. New York's AIDS Theater Project offers a rousing musical parody on stigma, while across town, a woman reflects on her own HIV experiences as she prepares to meet her birth mother for the first time. A touching narrative reflects on a father's inability to accept his son's death - and his life. A telling and frank discussion on the need to "get out and live again" presents a look at sex and sexuality from dating to self-esteem and responsibility. In South Dakota, a Lakota woman faces her HIV status with the discovery of her pregnancy, while in the Bronx, a young man reflects on his future after contracting HIV from his first relationship.
- Care (Program Three)
- HIV disease is changing the priorities of the American health care system, providers, and patients. In Washington DC, "CWA" (comedian with AIDS) Nalty Killeen shares his comic overview on health care. A comprehensive clinic in Atlanta underscores that "care, not medicine is what is most important." A mother turns to diet, rest, and spirituality for her own care, but chooses to enroll her young daughter is a USC Medical Center clinical drug trial. An unlikely partnership develops between the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (San Francisco) and the Institute for Traditional Medicine (Portland). Poet Wayne Corbitt shares the realities of physical and emotional pain in the everyday. In Queens, Patrick catalogues his life and prepares for his death in no-frills fashion. In San Francisco, as Mary and her 15 year-old daughter Sinead prepare for her junior high graduation, they also prepare for her future after Mary's death.
- Fighting for Our Lives (Program Four)
- Activism exists because people continue to die. Fears and concerns about death, grief and commemoration are explored along with the ways many are making a difference in the battle against HIV/AIDS and in our society. Residents and care-providers at a hospice in Austin, Texas share their perspectives on finality. Sweet Honey in the Rock provides spiritual healing and acknowledgment with "Breaths." Two men living in remote Navajo territory find purpose and fulfillment in educating others. A grandmother takes to the airwaves with her on-going television news segments on her own experiences with HIV. Performance artist Penny Arcade discusses her own 14-years of activism and frustrations over the battle for resources. A twenty-something woman who has already lost over thirty friends to HIV disease, dances on the rooftops. From large to small, a glimpse of the many fronts from which the AIDS battle is being fought.
Community | Identity | Care
| Fighting for Our Lives
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