Wolfe announced this past week that the documentary
filmmaking team of Dan Krauss and Oscar-winner Paul Haggis’ (his first
non-fiction film) insightful look at the history of the first AIDS care unit, 5B,
will be available on DVD on Mar. 10.
The ARR is a leisurely 270 days and the film’s
limited arthouse box office take currently stands at $72,968.
5B,
made the festival rounds, including the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year,
had a brief arthouse theatrical in mid-June and then went back out on the festival
circuit. Unless you were near one of
the major metro screenings or happened upon one of the festival screenings, 5B is
likely an unseen entity for most … Wolfe to the rescue with a DVD push in the
New Year.

The film is not a deep dive into the early days of
the first AIDS ward in the United States — Ward 5B (hence the title) at San
Francisco General Hospital — but a look back down the long corridor of
time. The early days are presented in
quick order and then the film shifts to the present day and a series of
decisive interviews with those who live through the hellish days when there was
no cure; no treatment, just compassion as people came to die.

Wolfe’s 5B DVD
release on Mar. 10 is well-worth a viewing.
A reminder that a “Gay Disease” became a viral pandemic that touched all
segments of society … so much time was lost and wasted by stigmatizing HIV and
not looking for ways to fight it.
No comments:
Post a Comment