Faced with their own mortality, an improbable group of young people—many of them HIV-positive young men—broke the mold as radical activists taking on Washington and the medical establishment. Join filmmaker David France and the New-York Historical Society for a FREE screening of the Academy Award-nominated documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE.
HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is the story of two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose advocacy and innovation turned AIDS from an a...
Faced with their own mortality, an improbable group of young people—many of them HIV-positive young men—broke the mold as radical activists taking on Washington and the medical establishment. Join filmmaker David France and the New-York Historical Society for a FREE screening of the Academy Award-nominated documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE.
HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is the story of two coalitions—ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group)—whose advocacy and innovation turned AIDS from an automatic death sentence into a mostly manageable condition. Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists pushed the pharmaceutical industry to identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. Today 8 million people are alive thanks to their work. Using a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and '90s, 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.
David France is an award-winning journalist, producer, director and New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about AIDS since 1982. Today he is one of the best-known chroniclers of the epidemic, having continued in the New York Times, where he was AIDS news writer in the 1990s; Newsweek, where he was senior editor for investigations till 2003; and now New York magazine, where he is a contributing editor. France has received the National Headliner Award and the GLAAD Media Award for his writing and top honors from the International Documentary Association, the New York Film Critics Circle, and the Gotham Awards. He is currently writing a history of AIDS due from Alfred A. Knopf in 2015.
Ticketing
Admission is free. Arrive early and enjoy free after-hours admission to the exhibition AIDS in New York: The First Five Years from 6pm-7pm.