Thursday, March 27, 2014

Beyond the Classroom presents "How to Survive a Plague"

Beyond the Classroom Living & Learning Program
Series on “People Power: Activism for Social Change!”
presents the 2013 Academy Award-nominated documentary:
How to Survive a Plague

Monday, March 31, 7:00-9:00 pm
        1102 South Campus Commons, Building 1, Seminar Room

This Series on People Power: Activism for Social Change is sponsored by
Beyond the Classroom Living and Learning Program, 
and the Office of Undergraduate Studies,  at the University of Maryland, College Park
WWW.BeyondTheClassroom.umd.edu


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. HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE 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 1990s, 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.
        “…The first documentary that I have seen that does justice to this story of a civil rights movement rising from the ashes of our dead.” -- Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Beast.
•           “Tells the story of these activists and the organizations they built... in compelling detail. Their fight was a Gandhian one—using the tactics of non-violent civil disobedience, the creativity of the gay community, and the effective but tough slog of grassroots participatory democracy.” -- Chris Beyrer, The Lancet. 

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.