How to Survive a Plague

New York, 1987. Six years have passed since the first case of AIDS was diagnosed. There’s no medication available and the disease is deadly – and being ignored by the public health authority. In Greenwich Village, ‘Act Up’ is founded; a group of activists searching for therapies to combat the disease and bringing the taboo topic to the attention of the wider public. In HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, filmmaker David France, himself one of the very first AIDS activists, reverts back to Act Up’s extensive archive material to create a fascinating historical documentary. It shows how, with determination and solidarity, the world can be changed. In the West, an HIV diagnosis is no longer an automatic death sentence – the problem on a global scale, however, is far from over.