Art is not an intellectual but dispensable production, a kind of ornament without which we can live. On the contrary is one of the most important elements of our culture. It expresses our concerns, the way we feel about the world we are living, our ambitions, wishes or hopes. Moreover, art also changes the way we feel. It opens new perspectives, because art shows the same reality we know from a different point of view and, therefore, help us to understand better the reality that surrounds us.
But art also helps to become aware of the problems that exist in our society. It happend with the film Philadelphia, an Amareican film produced in 1993, directed by Jonathan Demme and starring Tom Hamks and Denzel Washington. It was one of the fiirst films that spoke openly about AIDS, homophobia and discrimination at work.
VIH was isolated for the first time in 1983, by that time it meant a mortal illness and people panicked. Those who were infected sufferd employment discrimination. Particularly LGTB people, suffered a double discrimination, because of the infection and becuase of being LGTB, as a part of the society considered that it was their sexuual behaviour that was the cuase of the infection. Many awareness campaigns were need to change the situation and make people understand that VIH could be stopped is we all took preventive meassures, to make people see, that we were all safe by doing that, that we were not at risk by working with an infected person. In few words, that the discrimination people suffered was unbeareble and totally absurd.
In this context, the film Philadelphia came to help. It showed openly that kind of discrimination and introduced this debate in our society.
More than 30 years after our students wanted to know what did this film mean to our generation.
