I hate documentaries that are 90 percent talking heads. Why waste your time? If you're going to uncover a topic, get footage, pictures, etc.
Killing Patient Zero
2019
Action / Documentary
Killing Patient Zero
2019
Action / Documentary
Plot summary
Gaetan Dugas, who grew up in Quebec City, was a Quebec flight attendant, who was openly and proudly gay, and he liked to wear makeup. In the early 1980s after he contracted what was initially called "gay cancer" in the media, he provided his blood samples and the names of seventy two (72) of his former sex partners. Gaetan Dugas was initially demonized because of his promiscuity, being openly gay, and he was wrongfully identified as patient zero, therefore being wrongfully identified for quite some time as the initial person responsible for introducing the AIDS virus into North America. Dugas's assistance with a subsequent medical study and his providing his sexual history played a key role in contributing to a study that helped prove HIV/AIDS was sexually transmitted.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Tech specs
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB 904.32 MB
1280*714
English 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
Reviewed by
Talking heads documentary
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An effective debunking of the charge "Patient Zero" caused AIDS across America
This is the story of Gaetan Dugas, often known as Patient Zero of the AIDS crisis. It is told by friends and associates, activists and artists, and various doctors and researchers of the mysterious gay cancer. It turns out that Gaetan is likely not "the monster who brought AIDS to America", and that "zero" was a mistaken identifier that led to the idea he started it all. Gaetan was part of the cultural resistance to the no-sex suggestion from doctors, given that only a decade had passed since homosexuality had been removed from the list of medical disorders. Ironically, while Gaetan was disbelieving of sexual transmission, he was a great help to the researchers. Also, while playing only a small part in the book And The Band Played On, that scandalous part was what finally brought the book, and AIDS, into public consciousness.
So this is an effective revision of the story of a man who was scapegoated for AIDS.
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Solid documentary but ...
... probably too much background on gay life/culture/politics prior to the AIDS outbreak in North America. At times you wouldn't know the documentary was about Patient Zero. Other than that the documentary does an superb job in debunking the Patient Zero myth.