"We Were Here" recalls the AIDS crisis in San Francisco during the early 1980s, when what was then known as the "gay plague" first swept through the city's thriving gay community. The documentary focuses on the experiences of five individuals who witnessed the devastation firsthand, and whose stories are representative of many of the issues and themes of that era, from the political and sexual dimensions of the crisis to how women, primarily lesbians, cared and fought for gay men.