When the people who stayed beside Carlos Jáuregui as AIDS took his life speak about losing him, their grief carries considerable force. Yet their reflections also leave room for hope: how would the movement continue without the man who had led it? He died in 1996, far too young at 38, of an illness related to HIV and AIDS. The respect of those who had worked alongside him survived his death, and a national day of activism for sexual diversity was established in his memory.
That loss gives weight to this documentary’s account of the man regarded as the father of Argentina’s LGBT rights movement. It is also a history of people learning to fight together. The early struggle for equal rights was conducted entirely by men; the film follows the community’s expansion to include lesbians, and Jáuregui’s recognition that gay men and lesbians needed solidarity if their movement was to endure.
The film starts its story in 1984. Carlos and another man came out publicly on the cover of a mainstream magazine, and Carlos lost his university teaching job as a result. The appearance nevertheless made gay people visible to readers who had not seen them represented before. That article, followed by others, turned visibility into public debate.
Carlos embraced that exposure. Open about his sexuality and willing to put himself in the news, he refused to let homosexuality remain hidden. His fearlessness earned the admiration of the whole community, while his colleagues came to hold him in profound regard. The social momentum he generated during the 1980s helped bring about the passage of anti-discrimination laws.
Much of the value here comes from being able to watch him for yourself. Older television appearances supply abundant footage of Jáuregui, making the documentary particularly useful as primary source material. Interviews with activists who knew him personally and worked at his side place those appearances within the circumstances of the time. Together, these accounts do a very good job of explaining Argentina’s history of activism with Carlos at its forefront, while also tracing the rise of HIV and AIDS through the country’s gay community.
I suspect his name carries far greater significance for Argentinians than for viewers elsewhere. I certainly didn’t know him, and others outside Argentina probably won’t either. Even so, there is real interest in seeing the particular route another country took toward LGBT rights. The film conveys how difficult that work was, and how the people who undertook it helped make life a little easier for the generations that followed. (5.5/10)