I don't know much about AIDS but I've always been interested in the subject matter as I care about LBGT causes so I finally decided to check out How to Survive a Plague, another documentary suggested by Dell over Dell on Movies as it topped his greatest LGBT movies list.
As I was mentioning, How to Survive a Plague is a documentary about AIDS and it follows two small groups of gay activists, ACT UP and TAG, as they fight the government, specifically the FDA, to get a treatment to turn a death sentence such as AIDS into a manageable disease.
The documentary starts in 1986 in New York where men and women not only are dying of AIDS but are even refused in hospitals and ambulances would refuse to carry them. There's nothing each of them could do on their own so they activists groups with the purpose to bring attention, awareness, and most importantly a cure to AIDS.
It follows these groups as they courageously battle the FDA as they introduced a toxic drug, the AZT, to cure the disease, politicians as they refused to step in for several reasons, and even the Catholic Church as they condemned the use of condoms, which were and still are effective in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
With a mixture of archive footage --from protests, home movies, and more sources-- and more recent interviews, director David France does a good job in capturing the struggling AIDS victims and activists as they witnessed their friends and family members go blind and die while the US government did absolutely nothing to stop it.
With How to Survive a Plague, France also manages to show the amount of discrimination towards anybody with AIDS or people linked to gay communities, he does a pretty good job at teaching future generations about the struggles of these people and all they had to put up with, but most importantly, he showcases how far people are willing to go for a change, literally to make the world a better and friendly place for everyone, no matter the sexual orientation or skin colour.
As I was mentioning, How to Survive a Plague is a documentary about AIDS and it follows two small groups of gay activists, ACT UP and TAG, as they fight the government, specifically the FDA, to get a treatment to turn a death sentence such as AIDS into a manageable disease.
The documentary starts in 1986 in New York where men and women not only are dying of AIDS but are even refused in hospitals and ambulances would refuse to carry them. There's nothing each of them could do on their own so they activists groups with the purpose to bring attention, awareness, and most importantly a cure to AIDS.
It follows these groups as they courageously battle the FDA as they introduced a toxic drug, the AZT, to cure the disease, politicians as they refused to step in for several reasons, and even the Catholic Church as they condemned the use of condoms, which were and still are effective in preventing HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.
With a mixture of archive footage --from protests, home movies, and more sources-- and more recent interviews, director David France does a good job in capturing the struggling AIDS victims and activists as they witnessed their friends and family members go blind and die while the US government did absolutely nothing to stop it.
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| Mongrel Media, Sundance Selects, IFC |
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