Carlos Jauregui is known as the father of the LGBT rights movement in Argentina, and this documentary is built around old television appearances and interviews with the activists who stood around him. The people who knew him personally and worked right next to him give you the context of that whole era. Jáuregui shows up in a lot of the archival footage, so the film works really well as primary source material. It begins in 1984, when Carlos and another man appeared on the cover of a mainstream magazine and outed themselves in public. That cost him his teaching job at the university. But that article, and the ones after it, got people seeing gay folks for the first time and then got them arguing about it. Carlos was loud about who he was and happy to be in the news, and by dragging homosexuality out of the shadows and not being scared to speak up, he won the admiration of the whole community. Everyone who worked with him respected him deeply, and that never faded even after he died far...
It begins in 1984, when Carlos and another man appeared on the cover of a mainstream magazine and outed themselves in public. That cost him his teaching job at the university. But that article, and the ones after it, got people seeing gay folks for the first time and then got them arguing about it. Carlos was loud about who he was and happy to be in the news, and by dragging homosexuality out of the shadows and not being scared to speak up, he won the admiration of the whole community. Everyone who worked with him respected him deeply, and that never faded even after he died far too young in 1996. We hear from the people who sat beside him as AIDS took him, and their voices are powerful, but also hopeful when they talk about what happens to the movement now that its leader is gone. Thanks to him, anti discrimination laws got passed, riding the social momentum he built up in the 80s. The film also shows how the gay community in Argentina grew to bring in lesbians, since at the start it was only men fighting for equal rights. Jáuregui understood that gay men and lesbians had to stand together if the movement was going to keep going. He died of an HIV and AIDS related illness at just 38, and in his memory a national day of activism for sexual diversity was created.
The documentary does a great job of laying out the history of activism in Argentina with Carlos Jáuregui leading the charge. It also covers how HIV and AIDS rose through the gay community there. I'm sure the name means a lot more to Argentinians, and people outside the country probably won't know who he is, I didn't either, but it's still interesting to see how different countries walked their own road in the fight for LGBT rights, back when it wasn't easy, so that later generations could have it a little easier. (5.5/10)
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