Imagine possessing an incredible technical mastery of film, only to have your entire reality upended by a life-altering medical diagnosis. In this episode of pplpod, we explore the technical methodology and archival legacy of James Wentzy, a definitive American documentary filmmaker and visual architect for ACT UP New York. We trace Wentzy’s journey from his "guerrilla filmmaking boot camp" in the gritty margins of 1970s New York to his pivotal 1990 HIV diagnosis, which transformed his camera into a weapon for survival. We unpack the "angry, raw, and thorough" aesthetic of DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activist Television), analyzing how unedited footage was used to circumvent mainstream media and manufacture primary-source evidence of a community under siege. From the grueli ...