Dûnsje op de fulkaan

The Frisian filmmaker Simon Haringa looks back on Queen's Birthday 1985 with a group of gay men. It was a time when Amsterdam was considered the gay capital of the world. True to tradition, the international gay scene gathered along the Amstel river to dance and drink exuberantly. The video footage of the men, often clothed in leather, is a wonderful trip down memory lane. 'Look at those big moustaches!' But it is not just a case of pure nostalgia. After all, this era was not as cheerful as it seems. One third of the men captured in the video eventually died of the consequences of AIDS. The threat of the 'mysterious disease' lay like a veil over the partying masses. The careless years of emancipation and free love turned into a period that was characterised by uncertainty, panic and death. Candidly, the men talk about their first confrontation with the affliction, about the question whether one should do a test or not, about being HIV-positive, about dancing on the volcano.