Winner of the panorama award for documentary film at Berlinale festival and 11 more international awards.

Blood is thicker than water, but blood is also the problem that flows through the veins of Barak and Tomar Heymann’s sincere, moving documentary that won the Panorama Audience Award in Berlin. Now around 40, Saar Moaz is a genial, charming, gay Israeli who has for years been a central member of the London Gay Men’s Chorus. He is also HIV-positive and experiencing all the challenges not only of his illness but also of his long-term expat status. He has built himself a good and happy life, but it is far away from the family, traditions and home whose tidal pull he has never stopped feeling.

At 21, he was expelled from the kibbutz that is still home to four generations of Moazes, including his six younger siblings, devoutly religious mother and militaristic, patriotic father. For the latter especially, Saar’s sexuality has been difficult to accept; for all the others his disease is the hardest thing to come to terms with. Whether it’s his sister’s fear that he could inadvertently infect one of the children; his mother’s grief at their separation and the likely shortening of his life span; or Saar’s own deeply ingrained shame at the “karma” of having contracted the disease (which happened during a drug-and-sex bender following a failed relationship), his HIV-positive status is a burden three times over: physically, spiritually and psychologically. The surprise of the Heymanns’ documentary is that although the issues it tackles are troublesome and heartsore, the film is anything but morose, as though it emanates from the engaging Saar himself, like a song.

Tickets: $10 or support the Gay Jewish Film Series and see all four films for $36

Refreshments provided courtesy of Barefoot Wine & Bubbly.

Snacks provided.

Series Ticket:

https://www.stonewall-museum.org/shop/gay-jewish-film-series-ticket/

Individual Ticket for Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? –  https://www.stonewall-museum.org/shop/gay-jewish-film-series-whos-gonna-love-me-now/