A screening of the first episode of a new ZDF documentary series focusing on a gay artist couple from East Berlin and a virus that suddenly changed everything in the 1980s. The subsequent panel discussion will address the political and social role of AIDS in the GDR. Why did the government under Erich Honecker wait years before informing the public? What measures did the authorities implement, and—above all—how did queer people react to the threat? What role was the GDR’s first film with a gay theme—*Coming Out*—intended to play in the fight against the disease, even though it did not explicitly address AIDS? The discussion will also explore the impact of the epidemic on the art world in both the East and the West. Art theorist Wolfgang Max Faust, who died of AIDS, observed: “In art, it is no longer about art. It is about our lives.”