La prima il 21 settembre.
http://surviveaplague.com/
New AIDS Film Goes Viral
While effective HIV treatment is now more affordable, 28 million people globally still cannot afford treatment. In the US, nearly half of the 1.1 million people living with HIV are not on treatment. What’s more – AIDS remains the most stigmatized disease in human history. Fighting for prevention, treatment, medical care and human rights for people with HIV/AIDS is the most pressing health care justice issue today.
Faced with their own mortality an improbable group of young people, many of them HIV-positive young men, broke the mold as radical warriors taking on Washington and the medical establishment.
![Immagine](http://www.thevitalvoice.com/images/stories/demo/plague2.jpg)
HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, debuting in St. Louis on October 12th at the Tivoli, 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.
Vital VOICE recently talked with David France about the upcoming film:
Colin Lovett: This film – how much of it is actual footage vs. a recreation – it doesn’t really seem like acting – but more a documentation of the actual fight on AIDS… can you talk about the assembly of the footage and how that all came to be this film?
David France: The film used 100% found footage that was taken as it was happening. It was the first time ever that the social justice movement recorded itself wall to wall that way. It was the dawn of the camcorder – the camcorder epidemic is a near sibling to HIV. First marketed by Sony in 1982 – HIV hit in 1981 – they were kind of growing up together. In the 9-year-period – they go from the camcorder to Hi-8, to VHS, to ¾ inch – it developed over time.
![Immagine](http://www.thevitalvoice.com/images/stories/demo/plague1.jpg)
To discover it – took one and a half years to find the people, then another year and a half looking through footage. Not all of the film owners survived – we got everything from whoever had the footage and the foresight to save the tapes. There were 33 separate sources of footage used to create this film.
CL: In 2012, AIDS and HIV are widely known and talked about, yet many in the world, our country, and even our own community know very little about the two. What inspired you to make this film now?
DF: This story – the story of AIDS activism was powerful and colorful – the true triumph was its role in identifying the drug breakthroughs in 1996 – that no longer made it a death sentence. My first goal was to tell the world that AIDS activism was one of those brilliant social justice movements that has changed history, and should be embraced as the worlds’ legacy – the way we embraced the liberation and civil rights movements – they’re globally recognized as one of the great accomplishments in human history. The AIDS battle belongs there. I think our community, which may not know this story as thoroughly as they should – still lacks heroes. This story of heroes got lost – and I’m hoping that gay people in future generations will see the power and brilliance that was exercised by the community and find strength and inspiration in that to take the battle to the next level. We did this. This wasn’t just saving millions of lives, which ought to be enough to get a Nobel Prize – but it revolutionized health care treatment. The way patients and doctors interact – the way drugs are researched, trialed, and marketed – that was the direct creation of AIDS activists in our community. We should learn and celebrate that and know we did that as a people and changed history as a result.
CL: The 2008 film Milk obviously had a huge impact on society (and many younger members of the LGBT community) regarding awareness of LGBT history. Do you see this film doing the same for AIDS activism?
DF: Yea – I hope so. Unlike Milk, and Milk – Harvey Milk – was a great man, AIDS activism was far more revolutionary than what Milk was doing. The story of Milk is similar – it ends in death. This story is about triumph and arrival – and the modern day gay rights movement. What was accomplished between Stonewall and AIDS was important, but nothing like what happened after AIDS. Prior, we had no allies in civil life – AIDS brought us to this brand new paradigm – and all of these accomplishments have been sparked by AIDS activism. It was 25 years of the most rapid and thorough cultural and social transformations in world history. We went from 25 years ago to being nearly invisible and powerless to being a full partner in civic life. It’s remarkable. There’s still a lot to do, but look what’s happened in 25 years, it’s head-spinning.
CL: It seems that these days, many of our youth have not lived long enough to have been personally affected by anyone dying of AIDS, and many people don’t know anyone who is HIV+. Do you think the youth of today are less and less afraid of the disease? How do you think this film and other projects like it can change that?
DF: Larry Kramer is getting a new life and that tells a story of how dark those fears were. I don’t think people today will ever experience that time – we’ll never experience that again – and we shouldn’t think that we will. People SHOULD be less afraid of HIV – but they should still be worried. We
haven’t figured out how to curb transmission – 55 million every year – we haven’t made a dent. Old AIDS looked like this – that’s why you shouldn’t get AIDS. A 20 year old who gets HIV today will live to age 70 on average with the drugs. It’s not going to be a normal life (with AIDS) and significant health issues – but they can live a normal life. It’s hard to tell someone who is 20 that 70 is not enough – there’s a whole new message we have to tell them. This film will tell people – you are powerful and you can do whatever you set your minds on – as disenfranchised from how you feel, you can find a way to fight into the center of power and make change. Twenty eight million people still have no access to the drugs. We should include a push for a cure. One person has been cured from AIDS today. Like in the film – if we can do it with one, we can do it with everyone – we just have to figure out how to make that happen – I think it’s gay people who are going to figure it out.
CL: With President Obama finally endorsing same sex marriage, the fall of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the granting of marriage and civil unions in some states, what do you see as the next equivalent “big breakthrough” in the AIDS movement and when do you see it coming?
DF: The cure – right now the excitement in AIDS research is concentrating on the idea that we’re getting close to a cure to AIDS. We have already seen one person cured – his name is Quincy Brown – lives in San Francisco – he went through an experimental treatment after living with HIV for over 20 years. It shows us it can be done – the question is, if we can do it with one, we can do it with everyone – how can we get there? That’s what this AIDS conference from July addressed. In the mean time – we have to make sure that everyone who needs AIDS drugs gets them. The drugs are taken by 6 million people – there are still 20 million who have no access to those drugs – will not get access and will die at a rate of 4 per minute in the same ugly way that Americans were in the 1980’s and 90’s.
There are an estimated 800,000 people living in the US with HIV who are not getting medicine – no health care, no diagnosis, or no access to HIV care – so their doctors haven’t told them how important it is to get on the pill. There are a few experiments going on in Washington and the Bronx where they’re testing and treating the entire population. We don’t know how it’s going – but it’s VERY interesting – they’re trying to test EVERYONE who lives in Washington DC and get them on effective treatment. The earlier you get on the drugs, the better the prognosis – if you are on effective anti-retroviral therapy, you’re virtually non-infectious. If you bring your viral load to undetectable levels, it reduces the chance dramatically of transmission. 1 in 4 in Washington DC is HIV+ - if you take all of them and put them on drugs, we end the epidemic.
CL: Do you intend to get this film to the White House?
DF: There is a white house screening – have a contact with Kathleen Sibelius – she’s a fan of the film. We are currently in partnership with the State Department – Hillary Clinton announced last year that she correlates LGBT rights to human rights – they just recently had their first LGBT conference in furtherance to that policy in Albania. The State Department translated the film into Albanian to screen the film there. We believe the administration has the power to bring AIDS back to public consciousness. We also believe the administration has to do better – Hillary announced that by 2015 she hopes to have an end to mother-to-child transmission, and eventually an AIDS-free generation. In order to do that, we have to get these drugs to people who need them. We have to redouble our efforts for AIDS cure research. And we haven’t seen it yet out of this administration. The George W. Bush administration did nothing right except for PEPFAR – a multi-billion dollar effort to get people drugs around the world. Obama has just rolled that funding back. So, how is this administration going to get an AIDS-free generation if they’re rolling back these programs?
CL: What was the best part about making this film
DF: It was humbling to be entrusted with this historical footage that had never been made available to anyone before – and that this history was known so broadly and the footage was delicate.
HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE debuts October 12th at the Tivoli in the Loop.
Director/Producer David France is an award-winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author who has been writing about AIDS since 1982 and today is one of the best-known chroniclers of the epidemic. His work has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, GQ, and New York magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and has received the National Headliner Award and the GLAAD Media Award, among others. Several films have been inspired by his work, most recently the Emmy-nominated Showtime film OUR FATHERS, for which he received a WGA nomination. He is at work on a major history of AIDS, due from Alfred A. Knopf in 2013. Based on decades of reporting, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is his directorial debut.
BY: COLIN LOVETT – STAFF WRITER
Una videointervista a David France