By John Corrado

★★★ (out of 4)

The 2023 Inside Out 2SLGBTQ+ Film Festival runs from May 25th to June 4th in Toronto, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.

In his informative documentary Commitment to Life, filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz (I Am Devine, Tab Hunter Confidential), explores the history of the organization AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), which was started as a way to raise money and provide support to those with AIDS, while battling social stigmas and a lack of government funding.

Through its mix of talking head interviews with those who lived through this era, as well as archival footage, Schwarz’s film offers an engaging oral history of this group (APLA Health helped produce the project), shown through the larger context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic during the 1980s and ’90s. The filmmaker takes us through the heartbreaking early days of the epidemic when it claimed the lives of so many gay men, with rampant misinformation causing people to be shunned and denied care, to the huge breakthroughs in treatment that have allowed people to live with the illness.

The film looks at how it took the involvement of celebrities, including Elizabeth Taylor, to help sway public opinion and gain vital support for people, at a time when lawmakers from the “moral majority” stoked fear and gave in to bigotry (including pushing for “mandatory quarantines”). Schwarz shows how pop culture events such as Rock Hudson revealing that he had AIDS, televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker’s famous interview with Rev. Steve Pieters (one of the film’s subjects) who had AIDS, and Tom Hanks’s Oscar-winning performance in Philadelphia, were key turning points in shifting public awareness around the disease.

AIDS Project Los Angeles became famous for their annual Commitment to Life galas, which attracted the involvement of wealthy donors and celebrity guests, such as Taylor and David Geffen. But Schwarz’s film also acknowledges some blindspots of APLA in meeting the needs of the Black, Asian, Latino and transgender communities who were disproportionately impacted by the epidemic, with more stigmas and even less support. This is where figures such as Jewel Thais-Williams, owner of the first Black disco club Catch One, and trans activist Bamby Salcedo, came in.

The documentary is perhaps most valuable as a testament to community action in response to government inadequacy, with a number of compelling stories revealing how it took the grassroots work of those in the queer community to support each other through this time. The film is densely packed at nearly two hours, but plays with a number of small emotional payoffs that cumulatively add up to something that is both educational and emotionally powerful.

Screenings: Saturday, May 27th, 2:00 PM at TIFF Bell Lightbox 2; May 28th to June 4th at 11:59 PM – Virtual (across Ontario). Tickets can be purchased here.