This U.S. documentary exposes the history of ACTUP (AIDS Committee To Unleash Power), an activist group that began in 1987 to fight against government apathy towards people suffering with AIDS.
This subject has shown up in documentaries rather frequently lately including "We Were Here" and "Vito". Those other documentaries were very powerful in getting to the viewer's heart; this new film gets down and dirty and shows, via recorded camcorder footage, the extreme anger that was needed to get government action to get drugs that could prolong life for those living with the disease. Tensions within the movement are also exposed.
Such anger would be dismissed in modern times as going too far. But considering the many who were ill, dying, and losing eyesight in those difficult times, the in-your-face approach was needed for true action especially when prejudice was also a factor. Sadly though, there are very uncomfortable moments when members of government institutions are being directly confronted and accused of murder. This seems very unfair yet one wonders if it was the only approach left to try to get the drugs to prolong life - drugs that became available in the mid-1990s.
This rhetoric would later morph into the extremes of political correctness that also arose in the early 1990s. It became a royal pain as it was used by many other people and groups who exaggerated their victim-hood if they had any to begin with. Perhaps, this will be the subject of a future documentary.
Most effective in this film was interviews with the surviving activists and their outlook on what happened in the nine years of that movement before better drugs were invented.
This subject has shown up in documentaries rather frequently lately including "We Were Here" and "Vito". Those other documentaries were very powerful in getting to the viewer's heart; this new film gets down and dirty and shows, via recorded camcorder footage, the extreme anger that was needed to get government action to get drugs that could prolong life for those living with the disease. Tensions within the movement are also exposed.
Such anger would be dismissed in modern times as going too far. But considering the many who were ill, dying, and losing eyesight in those difficult times, the in-your-face approach was needed for true action especially when prejudice was also a factor. Sadly though, there are very uncomfortable moments when members of government institutions are being directly confronted and accused of murder. This seems very unfair yet one wonders if it was the only approach left to try to get the drugs to prolong life - drugs that became available in the mid-1990s.
This rhetoric would later morph into the extremes of political correctness that also arose in the early 1990s. It became a royal pain as it was used by many other people and groups who exaggerated their victim-hood if they had any to begin with. Perhaps, this will be the subject of a future documentary.
Most effective in this film was interviews with the surviving activists and their outlook on what happened in the nine years of that movement before better drugs were invented.