Aids on Film - Memories of a Penitent Heart + Q&A with Special Guests Peter Tatchell & Peter Friedman

Memories of a Penitent Heart is a contemporary film about a life lost to the disease in 1987, at the height of the AIDS epidemic: it shows the destruction of a person seen through the religious, unforgiving eyes of a family who never accepted the truth about their loved one.

Both AIDS and COVID-19 have carried a stigma and a sense of tremendous isolation, both have made countless victims. Focussing on the AIDS epidemic, the two films I programmed for Flatpack - Memories of a Penitent Heart and Silverlake Life: The View from Here capture important moments in that crisis. - Film Programmer Mickey La Rosa

Presented as a very personal detective investigation, and shot digitally, Memories of a Penitent Heart differs from Silverlake Life: The View from Here which is a gritty video diary shot on hand-held S-VHS. While Memories is an essay film about the scars a family is still carrying today, Silverlake acts more like a time capsule - both films remind us that the disease will always represent a tragic chapter in human history.

Screening before the feature will be Fighting in Southwest Louisiana (dir. Peter Friedman/Jean-François Brunet, 1991. 27 min), similarly exploring issues around family acceptance (this time with a surprisingly positive outlook) while zooming in on the fight for a man and his partner to assert themselves in a deeply conservative American town.

We’re delighted to welcome human rights activist, broadcaster, and long-time campaigner Peter Tatchell to discuss elements from the film with Mickey after the screening.

This event was selected from Flatpack’s second open call for curators from underrepresented groups. See here for more information about the open call.