Critic Reviews

• Dave Calhoun, Time Out

  [A] sober, devastating film about how we all - and some more than others - have to deal with the most unexpected horrors in our lives.

• John Hartl, Seattle Times

  There's something profoundly inspirational about this portrait of a community coming together to battle prejudice and disease.

• Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

  "We Were Here" pays eloquent homage to men and women who deserve to be celebrated and remembered as heroes.

• Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail

  The most gripping war movie you'll see this year, We Were Here tells first-hand the story of how AIDS attacked San Francisco, killing more than 15,000. Whole peer groups were happy, healthy, and then dead in months.

• Bruce Demara, Toronto Star

  It is both a testament to the fallen and a series of life lessons from five brave survivors, lessons about finding the best in ourselves in the worst of times.

• Bruce Diones, New Yorker

  Its vivid, no-nonsense style (in which interviews, period photographs, and news footage merge seamlessly) makes the past present.

• Matt Brunson, Creative Loafing

  We Were Here ultimately serves as a tribute -- not only to those who are no longer with us, but also to those who crossed the minefield and emerged as survivors, storytellers and heroes.

• S. James Wegg, JWR

  ...cinematographer Marsha Kahm has done a stellar job of zeroing in on the disparate visages whether revelling in the joy of a long-forgotten moment with a former partner or letting tears of 'Why not me?' come into unabashed focus.

• Melissa Anderson, L.A. Weekly

  A simple, powerful act of bearing witness, We Were Here is a sober reminder of the not-too-distant past, when gays were focused not on honeymoon plans but on keeping people alive.

• Sarah Boslaugh, Playback:stl

  ...simple yet very intense, and if you have any interest in gay history, you won't want to miss it.

• Richard Knight, Knight at the Movies

  Cathartic and bittersweet with moments of joy and humor. Weissman's movie is a rare gift.

• Philip Martin, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

  an insular story, told by insiders, of a particular community - a community to which this reviewer happened to be connected ... invaluable as a reminder of how it felt to be helpless, to be thought lost, and yet prevail. They - we - did overcome.

• Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews

  ...this is a work that chronicles the very beginnings of a disease that shook the world for decades.

• Laura Clifford, Reeling Reviews

  ...honors the fallen, the survivors and those who helped both by documenting the intensity and the many issues surrounding the maelstrom which was the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco

• Duane Dudek, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  [It's] as much about survival as tragedy, and any statistics in it pale in comparison to the personal testimony of those telling the tale.

• , Film4

  Maintaining the perfect balance between the political and the personal, this is a documentary that will make you feel as well as think.

• , This is London

  Weissman documents the ingenuity, generosity and optimism of a community that fell victim to a horrible disease that, with astonishing speed, turned the world inside out.

• Andrew Pulver, Guardian [UK]

  Even if, understandably, it's a little inward-looking (the ongoing disaster in Africa gets barely a mention), as a slice of social history, We Were Here takes an invigoratingly positive position on a very gloomy time.

• Paul Weedon, Little White Lies

  An honest, frank and often moving documentary that deals with its difficult subject matter sensitively and compellingly.

• Eve Barlow, Empire Magazine

  A moving look behind the curtain of a rarely-explored community.

Read all 22 critic reviews