A documentary exploring the early days of AIDS in early 1980s San Francisco will be shown on ABC2 this Sunday night.

It’s now over 30 years since AIDS descended. In We Were Here, the stories of five individuals who lived through the early days of the epidemic have been captured along with archival video footage for an important new film documentary.

San Francisco had been a hotbed of sexual freedom, but the life of every gay man there in the early 1980s changed in unimaginable ways when a sudden and horrifying sexually-transmitted disease hit.

We Were Here’s producers say they pieced together stories from caregivers, activists, researchers, and friends and lovers of those who would be taken by AIDS-related illnesses, “and as people with AIDS themselves, the interviewees share stories which are not only intensely personal, but which also illuminate the much larger themes of that era: the political and sexual complexities, the terrible emotional toll, the role of women – particularly lesbians – in caring for and fighting for their gay brothers.”

We Were Here plays 8:30pm, Sunday June 3 on ABC2. See the trailer below.