About
Long before YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram, public access TV was the original platform for unfiltered creativity and community connection, a place where ordinary people could broadcast themselves to their community. A cooking drag queen, a late-night love guru, and a Chicano activist fighting the KKK are just three of the characters who found their voice in the creativity and chaos of 1980's public access television. Told entirely through rediscovered and restored public access footage, When We Were Live captures the stories of the outsiders who transformed an Austin community TV station into a world-famous stage for self-expression.