Peter Wells and Stewart Main made this ground-breaking 1986 drama, which screened here on primetime TV, the year the Homosexual Law Reform Act was passed. Wells' script is based on the death of one of his friends — one of the first New Zealanders to die from AIDS-related illnesses. This was a time when homosexuality was, to put it mildly, controversial. HIV and AIDS were the scariest things on the planet and they had arrived in New Zealand. Ignorance, fear, bigotry and a skyrocketing death rate stalked our gay communities. All over the country young gay men were watching their young gay friends die and wondering if their turn was next. But the living are the focus of A Death in the Family, as Wells recreates the oddly exhilarating “strange and foreign land” inhabited by those close to someone who is dying. Andy’s friends confront both their own mortality and the deadly new disease stalking their community, while his conservative rural family grapples with never having come to terms with his sexuality. NZ On Film has made the fifty minute long A Death in the Family available to view online. Watch it below. - 19th July 2013