Michael Balser

2021 - 2002

Video maker, curator, producer, AIDS activist. New Brunswick-bred Michael Balser was part of the experimental video and Super 8 scene in Fredericton and Ottawa before finally putting down roots in Toronto in 1985. Balser continued his prolific output, combining activist documentary with experimental narrative and collage, up until his death in 2002. Dialogue said by an “AIDS Activist Action Figure” in his 1996 film Treatments might be thought of as his parting words: “...if I’m going to go, at least I’m going to go out fighting.”

Фильмы

Positive Men

Michael Balser

Andy Fabo, Stephen Andrews

Positive Men begins as a docudrama which illustrates the impact of the AIDS epidemic on gay men in the early 1980s. Memories of New York and San Francisco are the backdrop for seven dramatic scenes which designate the intersection of community support, medical science, and gay politics that emerged in response to the AIDS epidemic. Words and images from these scenes resonate throughout the documentary portraits which follow. The interviews, conducted in Toronto and San Francisco (1993-1994), feature artists, filmmakers, AIDS community workers, writers and volunteers who have made unique contributions within the cultural and community responses to AIDS.

Positive Men

1995

Канада, документальный

The Great AZT Debate

John Greyson, Michael Balser

Michael Balser, Tim McCaskell

AIDS activists discuss the merits and harms of AZT, one of the first drugs approved to treat HIV.

The Great AZT Debate

1989

документальный

An Evening With Richard Locke

Richard Locke, Michael Balser

Richard Locke

Richard Locke was the star of the Gage Trilogy, ground-breaking feature length gay porn films made in the late seventies. This tape is a document of an erotic performance intercut with statistics of HIV transmission in North America.

An Evening With Richard Locke

1992

Канада, документальный