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Realizing the need for a political voice, Kramer and others formed the frontline AIDS activist group ACT UP, who were called fascists by New York City Mayor Ed Koch, later backpedaling to “concerned citizens.” In this volatile “Silence = Death” era, doctors, journalists and protesters of all ages are shown being shoved into police vans at demonstrations while chanting, “Healthcare is a right.” Even for those familiar with this history, the footage is powerfully affecting. Over the wracked, shrunken bodies of AIDS patients, talking heads and clips reveal that significant medical research remained minimal while the government stayed silent. The film’s visceral emotionality kicks in from the pre-titles sequence. But in his first documentary, he also shows a firm grasp of narrative, giving this decade-long chronicle a driving, fluid through-line enhanced by Stuart Bogie and Luke O’Malley’s music. France’s reporting skills are impeccable.

Walk, the film was clearly a monumental research project, culling material from 700 hours of video. Written by the director with his editors T. It also shows the enduring government apathy toward gay-rights issues that slowed research funding and cost so many lives.Ī journalist who has been covering AIDS since 1982, France is working on a major history of the epidemic, due from Knopf in 2013. The film is actually an epic celebration of heroism and tenacity, and less directly, a useful template for any fledgling activist movement, demonstrating the effectiveness of inside/outside strategy. The battle of a small New York-based group of gay activists against the FDA, the NIH and major drug companies might sound more earnest than engaging. and transformed HIV into a manageable chronic illness. That breakthrough shift from monotherapy to combination therapy brought a massive decline in AIDS-related deaths in the U.S. It traces the path from the dark days when AIDS was a death sentence through the protease inhibitor revolution of the mid-‘90s. While it has considerable overlap, How to Survive a Plague is by definition of its title the next chapter.