It's My Party

Memory Served: Sometime between 1995 and 1999, Manila

In the days before ARV -- and way, way before HAART -- the death sentence stigma of HIV diagnosis was a suffocating blanket. The most uplifting in the narrative of dying of AIDS is acceptance of the certainty of death and reconciliations before the inevitable final departure.

"It's My Party" was one of the first films I saw that dealt with AIDS and death, and I saw it at the drop-in center of The Library Foundation in Malate, Manila. After an initial visit and letting my young insecure self lurk during a Friday night group discussion, I returned to sample the Saturday movie night.

(Read about what Roger Ebert said about this movie)

The third Sunday of May the world observes the International AIDS Candlelight Memorial.