Why Not Watch?
Don’t worry world! We always support watching documentaries legally and many of the films we recommend on Influence Film Club are available where you live too. We suggest using your preferred method for watching a film – such as searching iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, VOD platforms (video-on-demand), or renting/buying a DVD.
Find out more about starting a film club!
HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is the tale of two coalitions who turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition. Meet the self-made activists who infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs.
Director: David France
Share this film. Give others the chance to expand their knowledge.
Educate yourself on the facts surrounding HIV/AIDS. Educate others. Become an informed citizen so that you can affect the AIDS crisis both locally and globally as well as contribute to change the misconceptions and stigma surrounding the illness.
Practice safe sex and get tested for HIV. Make sure everyone you come into contact with does the same.
Become involved with Greater Than AIDS, which extends HIV messages and community outreach.
Become a member of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, which supports action around HIV, health, and human rights to end AIDS.
NPR:
“Noting that the movement’s birth coincided with the first camcorders, director David France, a longtime AIDS journalist, dug up a treasure trove of amateur videography chronicling the devastating passage of the disease.”
Listen to our playlist with music from the film on Spotify.
According to Time Magazine, the war on drugs is driving much of the global AIDS pandemic.
A key AIDS report concludes “that many national and international organizations tasked with reducing the drug problem have actually contributed to a worsening of community health and safety. This must change.”
Interview Magazine speaks with director David France on making HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, and how his transition from journalism to filmmaking was a natural one.
“As such outsiders, and as such disenfranchised people, that they were able to manage this revolutionary work is really stunning, and deserved recognition.”
Visit Documentary Channel
“We are at a tipping point in the fight against AIDS,” reports the Huffington Post. “The evidence is overwhelming that antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) work, and work powerfully.”
BBC with hopeful proof that AIDS education is reaching those who need it the most.
Involved since its founding in 1987, activist Jon Greenberg provides this explanation of ACT UP in 1992, when the fight for access to AIDS drugs was at its peak in the U.S.
Also read this interview with Iris Long, the first scientist to join ACT UP in the fight for AIDS drug research and access.
Act Up became “the most effective health activists in history, pressuring drug companies, government agencies and other powers that stood in their way to find better treatments for people with AIDS — and, in the process, improving the way drugs are tested and approved in the U.S.”
Activist Peter Staley answers questions from Time Magazine.
"BRILLIANT … See this movie."
Time Magazine
"THE BEST DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR. Extraordinarily moving. Singular and powerful."
Esquire
"An epic celebration of heroism and tenacity…"
The Hollywood Reporter
