By Daniel Hernandez 
Staff Writer 

  A memoir and celebration of the fierce yet kind spirit of Connie Norman is what is shown in “AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman.” on March 24.

The one hour film showcased the life and legacy of Connie Norman throughout her years of activism during the AIDS crisis of the 80s and 90s.

The film features archival footage of her at protests, home made tapes of her domestic life with her husband, interviews from friends and family that knew her, radio and TV show appearances, and her writings from her column “Tribal Writes.”

During the film, the viewers see her experience as an openly trans woman living first in San Francisco and later in Los Angeles.

The viewers see how many reforms and communities of openly gay and lesbian people began to emerge in major cities across the US after the Stonewall riots in 1969.

However, in the late 1970s and throughout the 80s, the AIDS epidemic was killing gay men, and since it was unknown how it was transmitted, it became known as “gay cancer.”

An unknown population of people who suffered alongside this was trans women, such as Norman herself, who was later HIV positive and died from AIDS. The film depicted how trans women would either die in secret alone or would be forced to become more masculine to seek medical care.

Through the film, there were many protests of the U.S. government’s failure to address the AIDS crisis, not only its abandonment of gay men, but also women who contracted HIV, and children born with the ailment, as well as those who refuse to get help.

It also showed responses from the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors at a 1990s meeting that were being protested against, who at the time dismissed the concerns of the public said “That there was no concern or interest in the AIDS crisis to fund clinics or medical care to address the AIDS crisis.”

The film showed the organization “AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power,” otherwise known as ACT UP, throughout different cities in the US, and Norman’s involvement with the organization here in Los Angeles.

It also showed Norman’s attendance of the “March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation” that happened on April 25, 1993 and her speech that she made that day.

The film highlights her life as an activist, but also who she was as a person. When she wasn’t an activist, it showed how she presented herself as someone who was a former drug user, ex-drag queen, ex-hooker, former high-at-risk foster youth and post-op transgender woman.

It showed how she was unafraid to share parts of her life, even intimate parts of herself, be it her body or experiences.

Filmmaker and director Dante Alencastre and Husky Pride Center Coordinator Lynn Wood sat down for a Q&A between the two of them while accepting questions from the crowd.

Originally, Wood was to be a moderator, but also someone who was asking questions as a person who had lived through that era of protest.

However, the Q&A became an engaging conversation of memories of Norman and how the film captured her, while still accepting questions from the crowd.

“I was 19 or 20 years old when I got involved in Act Up and was part of a church organization in West LA that helped people,” Wood said.

She added how she met Norman and that while she never knew her personally, she had interacted with her and had seen her activism first-hand.

“Connie was someone who, for a lot of people, was their first trans person that they met,” Alencastre said.

Alencastre was born in Peru in 1963 and moved to New York City in 1974, where he lived until 1990, when he moved to Amsterdam until relocating to Los Angeles in 2006.

His background was in French literature and theatre, which he studied at Columbia University.

The inspiration for the film stemmed from Alencastre’s first short documentary, “En el fuego” in 2007.

The short documentary follows the lives of trans women in Lima, Peru and focuses on their stories of living day to day life while navigating the LGBTQIA scene in the city and what their experiences were.

“The most wonderful thing that happened was that trans Latina women from here in LA started coming to my screenings, and these were women who were leaders of the movement at the time… but they inspired me to continue to make films about them,” Alencastre said.

 He made a film about Bamby Salcedo, who is a trans activist and the CEO of Trans Latina Coalition, whom he met before she became the CEO.

Following the premiere of the film Transvisible in 2013, Salcedo introduced him to a single mother, Ofelia, and her daughter Zoey, who was 12 at the time and was a transgender youth.

After making a film about them in 2017, Alencastre was approached by a close friend of Norman, who gave him the idea to make a film about her.

At first, he didn’t know about her, but after doing his research, he began to work on the film immediately.

Production began in 2018 after he received funding for the film and the first part of the film was the interviews with Norman’s friends and family.

However, in 2020, the pandemic hit, but Alencastre had already received 40 to 50 hours of footage and spent lockdown combing through footage and digitizing it.

Editing began soon after, with all of it being done virtually, and the final cut was achieved through Zoom meetings with Alencastre not meeting his editor once in person.

In March of 2021, the film premiered virtually in London, and the first public screening was in August of that year at the DGA Theatre Complex in Hollywood.

The film has been shown around the world at universities and with different organizations, and is now being shown throughout the LACCD.

Alencastre said that when choosing the archival footage, he wanted to get the best soundbites and footage of Norman that would best resonate in today’s era, given that at the time of the production in 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement against police brutality was happening.

He wanted to make a film that was about humanity and to de-stigmatize AIDS, especially in the Latino community.

“It was like a trip down memory lane, and I could immediately transport myself back to those times… It was a great film, and I thought it was very touching,” Wood said her thoughts on the film and also her personal experiences during the era when Norman lived.

She shared how she enjoyed the film and did not put Norman on a pedestal, but rather portrayed her as how she truly was in life.

“It was pretty well representative of who she was as a whole… She would fight with you and be very sweet in the same breath,” Wood said.

“One thing Connie always did was she would make sure the baby gays would have the ACT UP lawyers phone number written on their arm in marker,” Wood said.

She shared how during the film she immediately recognized the lawyer from ACT UP due to her having written his number down so many times.

For more information on future screenings of the film please go to https://www.aidsdivaconnie.com/.