Look Again. Jan 19 – 29, 2012 Park City, Utah

Faced with their own mortality, an improbable group of mostly HIV-positive young men and women broke the mold as radical warriors taking on Washington and the medical establishment. How to Survive a Plague is the story of two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. With unfettered access to a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and '90s, filmmaker David France puts the viewer smack in the middle of the controversial actions, the heated meetings, the heartbreaking failures, and the exultant breakthroughs of heroes in the making.

Blisteringly powerful, How to Survive a Plague transports us back to a vital time of unbridled death, political indifference, and staggering resilience and constructs a commanding archetype for activism today. - D.C.

Howard Gertler
howard.gertler@gmail.com
917-327-3703
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@ByDavidFrance

David France, a New York magazine contributing editor, was the longtime national affairs editor at Glamour and senior investigative editor at Newsweek until 2003. His work has been published in nearly every major magazine in the country, including The New York Times Magazine, GQ, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone. France has received the National Headliner Award, the GLAAD Media Award, and top honors from the New York Press Club and Amnesty International. How to Survive a Plague marks his documentary film debut.

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