How to Survive a Plague

“The whole world is watching!” the protesters chant in front of the National Institutes of Health, a place whose bureaucratic reluctance towards dialogue and action cost more lives every day. It’s the1980s, and as fast as the flu, a disease is spreading that is devastating primarily young men, turning them in a horrifyingly short time into withered, dying corpses. Noone has any information, the media and government remain silent and there is just a whisper of the “homosexuals’ plague” for which there is neither any cure nor a warning on how to prevent it. David France’s documentary uses exclusive never-before-seen footage, shot directly on the spot and during the time when two activist groups, ACT UP and TAG, joined forces and started a battle for their lives: finding treatment options, creating huge support communities, and using non-violent guerilla protest as well as radical art projects in order to break the general silence, which is literally killing. An action-driven, uncompromising film about a revolution and its heroes.