Close to Home: The Tammy Boccomino Story
HKO Media Inc., WKBD-TV, F&M Distributors
Television has played an enormous role in our understanding of the AIDS pandemic. While broadcast coverage of this subject has been generally responsible, it has tended to emphasize those at the far ends of the disease’s spectrum: the desperately poor victim and the afflicted celebrity. Close to Home: The Tammy Boccomino Story chooses a less showy subject—a young suburban housewife and her family. In Harvey Ovshinsky’s understated documentary, the family grapples with the fear, anger, and guilt that come with this disease, eloquently illustrating the common sense and quiet courage it takes to live with AIDS. For informing and educating without sentimentality or sensationalism, a Peabody to Close to Home: The Tammy Boccomino Story.