Silverlake Life: The View from Here

Institute History

  • 1993 Sundance Film Festival

Description

When Mark Massi and Tom Joslin discovered they both were infected with the AIDS virus, Tom decided to document the progress of the disease on videotape. Joined by longtime friend Peter Friedman, who ultimately finished the film, they have produced a devastatingly real chronicle. If, up to this point, AIDS has remained an abstraction for many people, the vividness of this portrait will go a long way toward encouraging a more-immediate understanding.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but this is a very difficult film to watch. Intercutting interviews with family members and footage from an earlier film about what it feels like to be gay, it details the agony of living with AIDS. Personal and at times confrontational, the film makes the ordeal so powerful that you can't help but continue to be a cinematic witness. The mundaneness of everyday life is reframed in the face of imminent death. The visual impact is overwhelming and underscores the terrible situation that AIDS sufferers must confront The film not only records death, but also life with AIDS. Separation from society only magnifies the pain.

Ultimately Silverlake Life offers the viewer a profound opportunity to observe the horror of death. But the film is neither voyeuristic nor cathartic, but a stimulus for us to reconsider the way we understand AIDS and realize that the situation cannot continue as it is. As disturbing as they may be, the lessons of Silverlake Life are about courage, endurance, humanity and our own mortality.


Saturday Jan 23 1:00 pm
Egyptian Theatre

Monday Jan 25 4:00 pm
Holiday Village Cinema I

Thursday Jan 28 7:30 pm
Holiday Village Cinema III

Friday Jan 29 10:00 pm
Holiday Village Cinema I

$6.00

— Geoffrey Gilmore

Screening Details

Sundance Film Festival Awards

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]