Documentary Film: HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE

ADDITIONAL INFO: **2013 Academy Award nominee for Best Documentary**

On February 14-16, The Plaza Cinema & Media Arts Center will be screening the powerful and life-affirming documentary, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, 2013 Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature. For the February 14-15 shows, we will have guest speakers from Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth, who will lead a post-screening Q&A and discussion.

ABOUT THE FILM

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. Running time: 109 minutes.