Alum Filmmaker Nick Aquilino Recalls Early Days of HIV, AIDS

SF WEEKLY -- Today, the decade-long AIDS vigil has largely been forgotten from San Francisco’s collective memory. But filmmaker, AIDS activist and longtime HIV survivor Nick Aquilino hopes to change that. He is hard at work on a new documentary about the vigil, its historical importance and the impact it had at the time. “I shot a set of interviews with the men who were there at the vigil while a student in the SF State broadcasting program in 1985,” Aquilino says. “Since that time, I have uncovered a few fascinating pieces of video, including a scene of the police forming a line pushing a group of ACT UP protesters down Market Street and several large demonstrations that happened between 1985 and 1995 to call to attention to the devastation of AIDS.”