In what may have been a first, a District agency hosted a free screening of a documentary that made it look bad. But that was apparently the point.

At last night’s free screening of The Other City, a documentary that vividly chronicles the District’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, Dr. Pierre Vigilance, the director of the District’s Department of Health, admitted that the film served as a powerful tool for raising awareness of what continues to be a serious problem for the city. While we all know of the shocking statistics, the various human sides of the disease can easily be missed in our daily lives — and the film portrays this magnificently.

If you haven’t yet seen the documentary, the Department of Health is hosting a second free screening tonight at the E Street Cinema at 7 p.m. Tickets will be available at 5:30 p.m. at the cinema, and the screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring J’Mia Edwards, an HIV/AIDS activist who is somewhat of a hero in the film; Mark Fischer, a member of the Ryan White Planning Council; and Angela Brown of the Carl Vogel Center.

Before you go tonight, be sure to read our interview with director Susan Koch.