Reframing Bodies : AIDS, Bearing Witness, and the Queer Moving Image

R. Hallas

In "Reframing Bodies", Roger Hallas illuminates the capacities of film and video to bear witness to the cultural, political, and psychological imperatives of the AIDS crisis. He explains how queer films and videos made in response to the AIDS epidemics in North America, Europe, Australia, and South Africa challenge longstanding assumptions about both historical trauma and the politics of gay visibility. Drawing on a wide range of works, including activist tapes, found footage films, autobiographical videos, documentary portraits, museum installations, and even film musicals, Hallas reveals how such 'queer AIDS media' simultaneously express both immediacy and historical consciousness.