Cast Members of Oscar Nominated Documentary “How to Survive a Plague” to Attend Special APLA Screening

Cast Members of Oscar®-Nominated Documentary “How to Survive a Plague” to Attend Special APLA ScreeningSpecial “One City One Pride” event to feature historical archives, film screening, and panel discussion

[quote][dropcap]YO![/dropcap] “Missing this event is like missing your momma’s birthday! – Josh Robbins”[/quote]

 

This event is named an: “I’m Still Josh” ROCKST*R event BES[+] BET  ◊◊◊◊◊

Peter Staley and Garance Franke-Ruta, cast members of the Academy Award®-nominated documentary film How to Survive a Plague will participate in an exclusive screening and panel discussion presented by AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) Wednesday, June 12, 7:30 PM, at the Silver Screen Theater in the Pacific Design Center. The public is invited.

The special “One City One Pride” event is presented by Collective Effect at APLA, and is sponsored by the City of West Hollywood and Symphonic Love Foundation. A reception featuring a historical archive that highlights APLA’s 30 years of service begins at 6:00 PM at the Pacific Design Center, followed by the film screening at 7:30 PM. The post-screening panel will be moderated by City of West Hollywood Council Member John Duran, and will include other local experts to provide an L.A. perspective on past and future of HIV/AIDS activism.  Tickets are available at apla.org/screening at $15 per person.

Hailed by the New York Times as “a model for the here and now of how social change occurs,” How to Survive a Plague is on the top 10 lists of over twenty major publications across the nation, earning 12 nominations and seven wins during the 2012 – 2013 film season, including a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the 85th Academy Awards®.

The film 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. With unfettered access to a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and ’90s, filmmaker and director 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.

Staley is the principal focus of “How to Survive a Plague,” having left a successful career on Wall Street to become an AIDS and gay rights activist, first as a member of ACT UP New York, then as the founding director of TAG (Treatment Action Group). Staley also served on the board of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR) for 13 years and founded AIDSmeds.com.

Garance Franke-Ruta (ACT UP/ TAG) left high school after two years, and eventually moved to New York in 1988. She pressured pharmaceutical companies to test and market drugs for people with AIDS under a plan she co-founded entitled Countdown 18 Months. Franke-Ruta, a graduate of Harvard University, is the politics editor forThe Atlantic Online whose work also appears in Salon, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Legal Affairs, National Journal and Utne Reader.

 [toggle_box title=”More about APLA” width=”200px”] AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA), one of the largest non-profit AIDS service organizations in the United States, provides bilingual direct services, prevention education and leadership on HIV/AIDS-related policy and legislation. With 30 years of service, APLA is a community-based, volunteer-supported organization with local, national and global reach.
For more information, visit apla.org.[/toggle_box]