Academy Award Nominee HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE Comes to the IFC Center

In the dark days of 1987, the country was six years into the AIDS epidemic, a crisis that was still largely being ignored both by government officials and health organizations-until the sudden emergence of the activist group ACT UP in Greenwich Village, largely made up of HIV-positive participants who refused to die without a fight. Emboldened by the power of rebellion, they took on the challenges that public officials had ignored, raising awareness of the disease through a series of dramatic protests.

More remarkably, they became recognized experts in virology, biology, and pharmaceutical chemistry. Their efforts would see them seize the reins of federal policy from the FDA and NIH, force the AIDS conversation into the 1992 presidential election, and guide the way to the discovery of effective AIDS drugs that stopped an HIV diagnosis from being an automatic death sentence-and allowed them to live long lives.

First-time director and award-winning journalist David France (who has been covering the AIDS crisis for 30 years, first for the gay press and then for the New York Times and Newsweek, among others) culls from a huge amount of archival footage-most of it shot by the protestors themselves (31 videographers are credited)-to create not just an historical document, but an intimate and visceral recreation of the period through the very personal stories of some of ACT UP's leading participants. A handbook for all activists who want to make change, How to Survive a Plague captures both the joy and terror of those days, and the epic day-by-day battles that finally made AIDS survival possible.

How to Survive a Plague is playing at the IFC Center in New York, and this weekend expands to the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (in New York) and the Laemmle Monica 4, Laemmle Playhouse 7, and Claremont 5 (in Los Angeles).

The film is also still playing in select theaters across the country, as well as available on Netflix Watch Instantly, iTunes and Video On Demand. Please reply to this e-mail if you require a screener.

For more information check out http://www.ifccenter.com/films/how-to-survive-a-plague/.

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