Welcome to The Cahokian... A thousand years ago Cahokia — across the Mississippi from what is now St. Louis — was one of the biggest cities in the world. Now it's an empty green spot next to the highway. I'm a middle-aged gay man living in New York City, center of the world, future footnote on somebody's future map. Welcome to the new world.
Thursday, January 05, 2012
"How To Survive a Plague" Going to Sundance!
My friend David France's documentary "How To Survive a Plague" is being premiered at Sundance film festival this month! In the interview above, David talks a little about why he wanted to tell this story, and how difficult it was to document a not-so-long-ago time that in many ways already feels like ancient history.
I've seen a rough cut of the film and it's really terrific. It's also really relevant: because while it tells the story of a handful of heroes trying to fight AIDS on the streets, in the halls of government and in the nation's science labs, what it really tells is a story of activism. Activism that happened, in fact, to change the world. It's fascinating to see footage of political protests in the 1980s at some of the same locations of today's Occupy Wall Street actions. When this film makes it to general distribution, as it is bound to do, it's going to be a must-see not only for people who lived through the worst of the AIDS crisis, but for activists of the present looking for inspiration.
Read about it at the Sundance website. The film has a "like" page on Facebook. Good luck, David!
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How exciting to make it to Sundance. Best of luck to your friend.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine's son was very involved in Act Up in those early days. Gosh it seems like a million years ago.
I will look forward to being able to see the film.
It is exciting. I was in NYC during ACT-UP and went to one or two demonstrations, but I wasn't at all active in the group...I was in my period of running away from how horrible the world could be.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see the finished film either. I'll post updates.
that's fantastic for your friend, ish! please pass on congratulations from someone he knows nothing about and will never meet! haha.
ReplyDeletegood to see important issues being addressed to a wide audience.
Freebones, David seems to be getting great response and encouragement from all over. It's exciting to see.
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