Gone: The Disappearance of Aeryn Gillern

A mother recounts the disappearance of her son in Gretchen and John Morning's moving documentary about a grave injustice. An interview with retired Ithaca police officer Kathy Gilleran forms the core of the story, to which are added family photos and video footage. Kathy says she knew Aeryn (who legally changed his surname to “Gillern”) was gay before he told her, and that she never saw it as an issue. In 2007, while living in Vienna where he worked as a researcher for the United Nations, Aeryn went missing. None of his associates had any idea what might have happened, although there were rumors about some kind of an altercation at a sauna. Kathy traveled to Austria, where she found investigators sniffing around Aeryn's apartment; when she spoke with them, they presented conflicting stories and attempted to intimidate her from pressing forward. The authorities also suggested that Aeryn was HIV+ and that he may have committed "spontaneous suicide," but Kathy had proof that Aeryn had tested negative. Even the witness who claimed to have seen a body in the Danube kept changing his story. After a few days, the police gave Aeryn's possessions to Kathy and sent her on her way, but then she launched her own investigation, one that would continue for years as she gleaned more information, although definitive answers remained elusive. Gone is a powerful study in contrasts: between a city that couldn't care less about the fate of one openly gay foreigner and a supportive mother who refused to take no for an answer. Recommended. (K. Fennessy)