HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC (2022)
HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC takes an inside look at the historic, multi-national race to research, develop, regulate, and roll out COVID-19 vaccines in the war against the coronavirus pandemic. The documentary began filming in early 2020 as the largest public health effort in history got underway and followed those efforts over the next 18 months, exploring in real time the hard work and collaboration of health agencies worldwide, as well as the political and moral failures of governments to act impartiallyand equitably.
HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC details the work of researchers in their labs, scientists conducting volunteer trials and science journalists working to stay abreast of the fast-shifting landscape as the coronavirus continued its deadly onslaught. With unparalleled access to world-renowned scientists, the heads of pharmaceutical companies, government agencies and frontline workers, HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC is the definitive chronicle of the most consequential undertaking of the 21st century. It is where towering achievements in science collide with the geopolitical realities of desperation, greed, and nationalism.
WELCOME TO CHECHNYA (2020)
With searing urgency, “Welcome to Chechnya” shadows a group of activists who risk unimaginable peril to confront the ongoing anti-LGBTQ pogrom raging in the repressive and closed Russian republic.
Since 2017, Chechnya’s tyrannical leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has waged a depraved operation to “cleanse the blood” of LGBTQ Chechens, overseeing a government-directed campaign to detain, torture and execute them. With no help from the Kremlin and only faint global condemnation, activists take matters into their own hands. In his new documentary, David France uses a remarkable approach to anonymity to expose this atrocity and to tell the story of an extraordinary group of people confronting evil.
The Death & Life Of Marsha P. Johnson (2017)
THE DEATH AND LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON reexamines the death of a beloved icon of the trans world while celebrating the story of two landmark pioneers of the trans-rights movement, trailblazers who put the T in LGBT.
“It’s both a true-crime mystery and an elegy for the old West Village.”
"A poignant and accurate picture of Johnson’s gargantuan efforts to dissolve both individual and systematic homophobia, as well as to make the movement more inclusive of the trans community."
"Weaves together past and present, not only telling the story we’ve come to see, but the larger one besides."
"France didn’t set out to make a by-the-books biopic, and that’s to his credit."
"Suspenseful for the way it recollects the past through the prism of a murder mystery, brilliantly fusing an archival history with the elements of a detective story."
"It should be one of the signature breakouts from this year’s Tribeca Film Festival."
– Variety
"Exploring the life of a figure whose contributions to the Stonewall riots, transgender rights and the AIDS epidemic were revolutionary."
"France continues to display his command for compiling archive, never-before-seen footage and contemporary first-person perspectives with supreme editorial acumen."
– NBC
“The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson” is essential because it tells a trans person’s story through her own perspective — a strategy the rest of Hollywood should emulate."
"Reminds you of the key part that the transgender community played in the socio-political struggle for recognition. Essential viewing."
"Beneath France’s shattering documentary are questions that never get less urgent. How do you remind young people that they’re standing on the shoulders of men and women who lived (and, in many cases, died) for rights they take for granted? And how do you get out the message that people are still dying and that historic injustices are still going unredressed?"
– David Edelstein, Vulture
"France’s gift for turning archival footage into sequences of choking rage is strongly in evidence, making this doc essential for anyone interested in learning how to make a loud-and-proud stink."
How to survive a plague (2012)
Directed by David France
In the dark days of 1987, America was six years into the AIDS epidemic, a crisis that was still largely being ignored both by government officials and health organizations — until the sudden emergence of the activist group ACT UP in Greenwich Village, New York, largely made up of HIV-positive participants who refused to die without a fight. Along with TAG (Treatment Action Group), and emboldened by the power of rebellion, they took on the challenges that public officials had ignored, raising awareness of the disease through a series of dramatic protests. More remarkably, they became recognized experts in virology, biology, and pharmaceutical chemistry.
Their efforts would see them seize the reins of federal policy from the FDA (Food & Drug Administration) and NIH (National Institutes of Health), force the AIDS conversation into the 1992 presidential election, and guide the way to the discovery of effective AIDS drugs that turned an HIV diagnosis from a death sentence into a chance to live long and healthy lives.
First-time director David France culls from a huge amount of never-before-seen archival footage — most of it shot by the protestors themselves (31 videographers are credited) — to create not just an historical document, but an intimate and visceral recreation of the period through the very personal stories of some of ACT UP and TAG’s leading participants. How to Survive a Plague captures both the joy and terror of those days, and the epic day-by-day battles that finally made AIDS survival possible. - Courtesy of PBS.com
