Staffan Hildebrand returns to Australia, where he started his project of documenting the AIDS epidemic in 1988, and to Cambodia where he first arrived in 1998. He interviews some of the scientists and activists who he met back then and displays some footage from the archive.

Interview with David Cooper, Director of The Kirby Institute at the University of New South Wales.

XIX International AIDS Conference. Interview with Phil Wilson, founder of the Black AIDS Institute in Los Angeles. He talks about the HIV prevalence in the US and its socioeconomic factors, about stigma and discrimination against homosexual persons.

XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. Swedish Dr Lars Olof Kallings who founded the International AIDS Society (IAS) in 1988 and who is now the United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Eastern Europe, reflects on the history of the AIDS movement.

Sten Vermund from University of Alabama reflects on the history of the global AIDS epidemic and his involvement in the field as a young scientist in the 80's. He discusses the social and economic factors of HIV/AIDS, such as stigma, poverty and the drug industry.

The primary focus of this documentary is on the history of how the AIDS epidemic started in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York in 1981. Many different stories are told about people affected or surrounded by HIV and AIDS in the early years of the epidemic.