B-movie powerhouse Troma Studios has a new motto: If you can’t beat ’em, give ’em something to beat off to on YouTube. The company has hit upon a novel response to the problem of video piracy: pre-empting torrenters by posting 150 Troma titles in full on YouTube. A few of their “classics” ( The Toxic Avenger (1985), for example) cost $2.99 to watch, but the majority are free. The selection includes movies produced by Troma Studios as well as titles in their distribution catalog; some of the more SKINteresting picks are the classic teen sex comedies Getting Lucky (1990), The First Turn-On!! (1983), and Video Vixens (1975), all of which contain copious amounts of bare flesh. Speaking of, Troma has made no attempt to censor the skin in the films it has uploaded, indicating a new, more permissive climate at the usually nudity-phobic YouTube–or maybe that this deal is too good to last long. See the Troma favorite Terror Firmer (1999) and the Mr. Skin Hall-of-Famer Video Vixens (1975) FREE after the jump!
We’ve seen Piper Perabo play a wide variety of roles in her career, but it’s been far too long since we’ve seen her in our favorite: naked girl. Well, cheer up, Piper fans, because our Skin Skout just left a preview screening of the time-travel action flick Looper (2012) at the Toronto International Film Festival and he reports that in the film, Piper breaks a non-nude streak that has lasted since 2001’s Lost and Delirious . Piper’s role has been kept under wraps save for a seductive promo photo (above), so we won’t tell you too much. But we will say she plays a “showgirl” who dances on stage in lingerie and then bares breasts in bed with star Joseph Gordon-Levitt 24 minutes in. Sorry, butt men- no Pooper . Looper (2012) opens in theaters on September 28 , but you can see Piper Perabo nude in Lost and Delirious (2001) right now here at MrSkin.com!
Also in Thursday morning’s round-up of new briefs, the Academy is set to honor four at its annual Governor’s Awards dinner. Toronto’s When I Saw You lands distribution. And new Clint Eastwood film is headed to the Tokyo International Film Festival. Academy to Honor Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hal Needham, D.A. Pennebaker and George Stevens, Jr. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will present Honorary Awards to stunt performer Hal Needham, documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker and arts advocate George Stevens, Jr. as well as the “Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award” to Jeffrey Katzenberg. The awards will be presented at the Academy’s annual Governors Awards dinner on Saturday, December 1st. Toronto’s When I Saw You Heads to Theaters The film by Annemarie Jacir will be Palestine’s entry for Best Foreign Language Oscar consideration and will debut at the Toronto International Film Festival September 9th. The story centers on an eccentric 11 year-old boy who runs away from a Palestinian refugee camp in his search for freedom. A journey of the human spirit that knows no borders, set in Jordan 1967. Around the ‘net… Angelina Denies Copyright Infringement in In The Land of Blood & Honey Lawsuit Jolie as well as fellow defendants GK Films and distributor FilmDistrict denied taking key elements of a book on the Bosnian War for her 2011 film In The Land of Blood & Honey in a 13-page response filed Tuesday, Deadline reports . Eva Longoria Says She’ll Be Her Own Speaker at DNC Longoria says comparisons to Clint Eastwood are not relevant as she gets set to take to the stage at the DNC. “People keep comparing us because we are both from the entertainment industry and he had a very different narrative,” the former Desperate Housewives actress told CNN’s Piers Morgan tonight at the DNC, Deadline reports . Clint Eastwood’s Trouble With the Curve to Close Tokyo International Film Festival Eastwood stars in the film directed by Robert Lorenze and also starring Amy Adams, John Goodman and Justin Timberlake. The film tells the tale of an aging baseball scout (Eastwood) with failing vision who takes a road trip to check out a hot prospect with his daughter, played by Amy Adams, during which they finally connect with each other. The feature will screen in Tokyo October 28th, THR reports .
Keep The Lights On director Ira Sachs ( Forty Shades of Blue , Delta ) tapped into his own experience in a tumultuous relationship that would eventually morph into the film that screened to accolades at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals earlier this year, winning the New York-based filmmaker a Teddy Award at the Berlinale. Keep The Lights On morphed out of the disintegration of a relationship he had with a man that spanned a number of years in New York around the turn of the century. Career demands, extra-relationship temptations, addictions, obsessions and more play into the rocky road experienced by the young couple. Sachs took inspiration for Keep The Lights On from the likes of Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right , Bill Sherwood’s Parting Glances and Jacques Nolot’s confessional Before I Forget , constructing Keep The Lights On as a gay man in NYC while embracing at times details some may consider unflattering. Danish actor Thure Lindhardt plays documentary filmmaker Erik, while American Zachary Booth plays closeted lawyer Paul, a couple who embrace each other while passionately forming a dramatic relationship rife with sex, drugs, highs, lows and dysfunction. Ahead of Keep The Lights On ‘s theatrical release this weekend, Ira Sachs invited Movieline over to his NYC apartment, which, perhaps not so coincidentally served as a prime location for his film. He talks about embracing depictions of addiction and sexuality, the challenges of making indie film today, how making the film affected him personally and what his former partner, who helped inspire the project, thought of the film. When did you decide that you actually wanted to make this film? I saw a film called Before I Forget by Jacques Nolot at (New York’s) Cinema Village, which was programmed by Ed Arentz — who is now my distributor. And what I saw [was] a film that reflected sort of contemporary life — Parisian life — of a filmmaker who was gay, but also what his life in Paris is that looks like something specific. As a gay person how we live looks very specific today and different than it did 20 years ago. I felt like there was no film that looked like my life, and no film which really reflected the community that I live in which is very mixed. The boundaries between gay and straight, I think, for most of us in our everyday lives, though not in our psyche has dissipated. So I wanted to make a film about sort of what I had seen in the last many years here. But specifically I ended a relationship in 2008 and I had a sense that 10 years before that was an interesting story. I started writing and I put it away for a couple of years, and it was really Mauricio Zacharias, my co-writer who read that material and said, “Well clearly this is a story you have to tell.” And in a way because I was doing something so autobiographical, I think I needed someone else to give me the blessing that it would be relevant. So how much of it is similar and how much of it is a departure to your own life during a certain time period? We began with the journals, and diaries, so we began with the raw materials from my life, but then ultimately we were creating a screenplay, which is constructed around its own laws and orders. And in a way, all my films have begun with things that I feel like I know more than anyone else. They’ve begun in a very intimate place. So you’re creating it similarly to the approach you took in Forty Shades of Blue for instance? Forty Shades was kind of about my dad actually. I grew up in Memphis with this larger than life figure who always had these younger girlfriends. And my relationship to those girlfriends was my entry to the film, and that sort of thing. And then when you start making a movie [like Keep the Lights On ] and you’ve cast a Danish actor to play a character based on yourself, then you’re like off to the races because you’re making a film. So what made you decide to go that route with a Danish actor? Was it that the actor Thure Lindhardt personally that appealed to you? I sent the screenplay to an agent that I have worked with in Hollywood, and I got the response that no one in the agency would be available for this [project]. And I knew even before that I wanted to make this film different. I thought that this film needed to be a truly independent film, so it would be financed that way. It would be made that way. So I heard about Thure who I was told was the bravest actor In Denmark and one of the best, and I knew that he would be. I sent him the script and he was alone in a hotel room in Spain, and he ended up using up all the scenes one could shoot alone, which were a series of masturbation scenes. And I knew that he was both comfortable with the material, but also really amazingly interesting to watch. So I casted him. Is this a little reflection, perhaps, on American actors, that they’re less inclined to do this sort of thing? I have a Danish lead actor. I have a Greek cinematographer. I have a Brazilian co-writer. I have a Brazilian editor. I had a Romanian script supervisor. I surrounded myself with non-American sort of sensibilities. And I think that’s a big part of the film. It’s a film about New York, and it’s a very New York film, but I think it’s told in a way that’s not repressed, and it doesn’t look at sex as some foreign object that has to be viewed only in the dark. Do you agree that that’s sort of the American POV generally, that violence in movies is acceptable, but sex is taboo? I do, I do. I think when this film played in Berlin, it was the most ordinary movie you could see.It was extremely ordinary which is very different than how it played at Sundance. How did it play at Sundance then? The subject matter and the sexuality made people uncomfortable. I think there’s a fear of difference in American cinema. And I was thinking a lot about that when I made this film because there used to be an idea that independent cinema was independent cinema . And that production and the means of production were actually separate from commercial cinema. And that gave you certain rights and opportunities — and I had all those rights and opportunities. I am one of a number of filmmakers who started out making films about gay people who stopped. My whole generation, most of us stopped. We either couldn’t make films, or we had to make other kinds of films. And I think that that’s partially about the individual, but it’s mostly about the culture, and trying to figure out how to sustain a career. I think for me, ultimately, I feel now that in some ways my marginal voice is actually my most powerful. It’s also possibly economically my most fertile, because I’m the guy who can make these films. Is there still a pretty low glass ceiling for gay filmmakers generally in this country? It wasn’t any easier to make a film about a Russian woman living in Memphis ( Forty Shades of Blue ). When you’re trying to make non-broad character-driven stories, and I’m interested in documentary as forum, so I’m actually trying to get the details right, which makes it even more specific in a certain way. Going back to Keep the Lights On and Thure’s character Erik, I got the feeling he was a little bit a love junkie. Yeah, and I would agree. He was someone who didn’t feel complete without obsessing over something. I think, no one’s used that term, but I think it’s a good one. It’s better than a sex addict. I mean, I like love junkie… He is someone who just emotionally needs some attachment. I think that there’s a compulsive need to be connected to another person. And I think the film in a lot of ways is less about addiction and more about obsession. There was something, these two guys, both of them are obsessed with the idea of maintaining their life together. And I think with obsession, sometimes it seems like the most comfortable place to be, because it shuts out everything else because you think, “Well if I can control this situation, then I can control my life.” So was it emotional reliving this to a degree? It wasn’t. No? It wasn’t really. I mean, I think by the time that I made the film I really believe I’d done all the therapeutic work and transformation in a lot of ways. Occasionally it felt like déjà vu. It was like an odd sensation that occasionally I was creating fictional scenes that were replicating things that were close to my own life. But mostly I just really felt like my life was one of the drawers that we can open. And I was always very willing to share as much as I could with the actors. But I never felt like they needed to try to do anything other than what was natural to them as actors and as people living the story. I mean, a lot of what I think I do as a director is try to give everything over to the actor. So I disappear. I mean, but the helms are their helms. The spaces are their spaces. I don’t rehearse with my actors. Then what’s your methodology of instruction? I talk to them individually, but I never talk to them together. So really in a certain way it’s more difficult for the actor because there’s a lot of risk, but actually that risk I think is the element that you could actually name in the performance in this film, and in my films in general. I think there’s something risky about it all. This is the moment. So I think to trying to capture the moment means that you’re really valuing the present, which includes the past, but it is about the present which is about the actors, it’s about flirtation, it’s what happens between them. Did you ever consider not emphasizing the drug use? Maybe there would be some other more acceptable vice like — alcoholism? An everyday addiction… Yeah, an everyday addiction, a “legal” addiction, yeah. You know, I really wanted to be unashamed and unabashed about the truth of my relationship and my behavior, and to not shy away from the details, and to not judge the action. So pot-head, crack addict, different kinds of distractions, different kinds of consequences, but the root of addiction is usually similar in lots of ways. And I feel like the drug use that the film talks about is really prevalent in the gay community at least. It’s something I feel like goes unspoken. So has your former partner seen this film? Yeah, he has seen the film. I showed him the film before Sundance. And he’s been very supportive. I mean, I think it’s not him. It’s a story about our relationship as seen through my eyes. Next: The New York filmmaker gives his personal Top 9 NYC films
The Master , the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix , have captured the zeitgeist of Venice Film Festival talk in the first half of the festival, but perhaps more quietly, director Haifaa Al Mansour is making celluloid history with her film Wadjda . Al Mansour is Saudi Arabia’s first female director, in a country that forbids movie theaters. The film follows the story of a determined 10 year-old girl living in the country’s capital, Riyadh. Shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, according to the director, the film follows young Wadjda as she lives her life trying to dodge the strict rules of Saudi society both at home and school. According to a profile of the film in Reuters , she is disciplined for not wearing her veil, listening to pop music and not “hiding in front of men.” But her sites set on a green bicycle that she decides to raise money to get it. Her plan is to learn Koranic verses and take part in a religious competition at school. If she can raise the money, she will buy the bike. And in the meantime, she will – at least temporarily – show herself as a renewed pious girl. “It’s easy to say it’s a difficult, conservative place for a woman and do nothing about it, but we need to push forward and hope we can help make it a more relaxed and tolerant society,” she said after her film premiered in Venice, speaking to reporters in English, according to Reuters. She added that the restrictive kingdom has started to open up for women, noting that female athletes traveled to London for the recent Olympics and that its monarch, King Abdullah has opened up better educational opportunities for women and they now can vote in municipal elections. “”It is not like before, although I can’t say it’s like heaven,” she said. “Society won’t just accept it, people will put pressure on women to stay home, but we have to fight.” Still she did encounter some social-stigma while filming in the country’s capital despite having received permission. Locals in some more conservative areas of the city did not like seeing a female filmmaker directing with men on the set and at times used a walkie-talkie in order to give instruction to her male actors. Wadjda is playing out of competition at the Venice Film Festival. [ Source: Reuters ]
Also in Tuesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, AMC Entertainment’s acquisition is now complete. After Dark Films eyes a horror. The Dark Knight Rises passes another box office milestone. And Jim Carrey is confirmed for a Kick-Ass role. Harmony Korine’s Venice/Toronto Film Spring Breakers Headed to U.S. Theaters U.S. rights to the film have been picked up by Annapurna Pictures. Starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, Rachel Korine, Heather Morris, and Gucci Mane, Spring Breakers is a college pop-culture and music-fueled story following the adventure of four young girls gone wild on spring break. As part of the main competition, the film will receive its worldwide premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday, September 5th followed by a North American premiere set for Friday, September 7th at the Toronto International Film Festival. Wanda Group Completes AMC Entertainment Acquisition Chinese company Dalian Wanda Group said it has completed its acquisition of AMC Entertainment Holdings, creating the world’s largest cinema owner. The transaction is valued at about $2.6 billion. “We now look forward to working with AMC’s CEO Gerry Lopez and his team to invest in and build on the company’s widely-recognized brand and the incomparable entertainment experience AMC offers to its millions of customers,” said Wanda president Wang Jianlin. After Dark Eyes Horror Script Beatus After Dark Films is looking to pick up the script to Beatus , by writing-duo, Kristen Ruhlin and Tony Repinski. The story revolves around a girl who expereinces symptoms of the Stigmata and discovers that true evil maybe within the walls of the church. Repinski and Ruhlin worked together previously on the horror, DarkHighway . Around the ‘net… Michael Fassbender, Domhnall Gleeson to Take On Frank Fassbender and Gleeson will star in Lenny Abrahamson’s next project Frank . Film4 will co-finance with the Irish Film Board. It is described as a comedy about a young wannabe musician, played by Gleeson, who discovers he’s taken on more than he can handle when joining an eccentric pop band lead by Frank (Fassbender). THR reports . The Dark Knight Rises Is 2nd Film to Pass $100M on IMAX Avatar was the first to pass the milestone. The numbers include domestic and overseas grosses, Deadline reports . Jim Carrey Takes Colonel Role in Kick-Ass 2 Carrey will play the role of the Colonel in the Jeff Wadlow-directed sequel. Carrey will star with Chloe Moretz, Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Nicolas Cage, Deadline reports .
With just under 300 features, the upcoming Toronto International Film Festival is a yearly behemoth that regularly churns out a number of films that will head to U.S. theaters and vie for the year-end awards race. In fact, Toronto is considered a launch pad for the long, long awards season that will culminate in the Oscar ceremony February 24th. Some recent Oscar winners that played TIFF before heading out to audiences in North America include The King’s Speech and Slumdog Millionaire . Over the next several days, ML will preview some of the titles we believe will be catching attention either with audiences, the awards race (or of course both). The ten titles that follow range from returning auteurs like Terrence Malick and Noah Baumbach to Toronto veterans that have managed to surprise audiences with their unique vision and will likely do so again. And there are some newcomers we just found interesting. This week, ML will profile some of the top “high profile” titles we’ll be watching closely. Docs, Midnight/Genre and Foreign-Language titles will follow this week. Take a look and by all means, add your opinions. To The Wonder , directed by Terrence Malick Famously reclusive, Terrence Malick nevertheless shows his work ethic with many projects on tap. He received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for his last film, The Tree of Life as well as Best Picture and Best Cinematography. His latest film, To the Wonder is a romantic drama who reconnects with a woman from his hometown after his marriage to a European woman falls apart. The film stars Rachel McAdams, Ben Affleck (who directed Argo , which is also screening at the festival) and Javier Bardem. Yellow , directed by Nick Cassavetes Nick Cassavetes added director to his resume back in 1996 with Unhook the Stars starring Gena Rowlands, Marisa Tomei and Gérard Depardieu. The next year, he took She’s So Lovely to Cannes. Known for his acting, including The Hangover Part II last year, he directed Sienna Miller and Lucy Punch in his latest project Yellow , which is TIFF-bound. The “dramedy” revolves around Mary Holmes, a young woman with a drug habit and that’s just the beginning of her problems. Inescapable , directed by Ruba Nadda Canadian director Ruba Nadda is no stranger to the Toronto International Film Festival. Her 2009 feature Cairo Time , starring Oscar-nominee Patricia Clarkson and Alexander Siddig won Best Canadian Feature at the event. Her latest film, Inescapable , which also stars Alexander Siddig along with Joshua Jackson, has been dubbed a “Syrian-flavored Taken “. In the film, Siddig plays a father who is forced to return to Damascus after 30 year after his vacationing daughter goes missing. Ginger and Rosa , directed by Sally Potter British-born director Sally Potter made a splash in 1992 with Orlando starring Tilda Swinton and Billy Zane. It won a prize at the European Film Awards as well as a string of nods at film festivals worldwide. Her follow-ups include The Tango Lesson (1997) and Yes (2004). Her latest film screening in Toronto’s Special Presentations section revolves around two teenage girls in London around 1962. They are inseparable friends and dream of lives beyond the domestic work their mothers had. As the Cold War and the sexual revolution heat up, however, their friendship is threatened. Disconnect , directed by Henry Alex Rubin Filmmaker Henry Alex Rubin received an Oscar nomination for his second film, Murderball back in 2005 (shared with Dana Adam Shapiro). The documentary debuted at the Sundance Film Festival that year and continued to gain notoriety throughout the festival circuit. His new dramatic thriller Stars Alexander Skarsgard, Max Thieriot and Jason Bateman about a group of people searching for human connections in today’s wired world. Frances Ha , directed by Noah Baumbach Noah Baumbach received a Best Original Screenplay Oscar-nomination for The Squid and the Whale back in 2005 and has won fans and nods for penning other popular films including this summer’s Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted and Fantastic Mr. Fox . His latest film stars Greta Gerwig as New Yorker Frances. She has no apartment and is an apprentice at a dance company, though she’s not really a dancer. She plunges straight into fulfilling her dreams even as their reality dwindles. Much Ado About Nothing , directed by Joss Whedon Joss Whedon has had quite a year so far and he will be heading to Toronto on the heels of directing the year’s biggest box office draw, The Avengers . But his latest film may not quite have the same mass appeal as his super-hero movie, but Shakespeare fans will likely be interested in his Toronto offering. Whedon’s latest is a modern re-telling of Shakespeare’s classic comedy about two paris of lovers with different takes on romance and a way with words. Spring Breakers , Harmony Korine Harmony Korine made a splash on the filmmaking scene as the co-writer of Kids in 1995 (along with director Larry Clark) and he moved into the director’s chair with Gummo in 1997, receiving a critics-centered FIPRESCI Prize at the Venice Film Festival. Korine is courageous in his story-telling, his long list of features and shorts include 2007’s comedy Mister Lonely about a Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe lookalikes living on a Scottish commune, while 2009’s Trash Humpers , which played in Toronto that year, is well…pretty much as the title suggests. His latest, Spring Breakers , follows four teens in a spring break that goes awry. After landing in jail, they are bailed out by a drug and arms dealer who wants them to do more dirty work. Peaches Does Herself , directed by Peaches Peaches fans will undoubtedly flock to see their idol in her first film in which she stars as herself. In the film, she makes sexually forthright music and then decides to do what her fans want – a transsexual. And if things aren’t complicated enough, she falls for a she-male and gets her heart broken. Laurence Anyways , directed by Xavier Dolan The Quebecois wunderkind returns to Toronto with his third feature, not bad for a filmmaker in his early 20s. He won festival accolades for his debut I Killed My Mother and followed it up with Heartbeats , which Dolan said he wrote on a train to Toronto from his home town, Montreal. Dolan starred in his previous films, but stayed behind the camera for Laurence Anyways which centers on the challenge a couple face when the man decides to have a sex change. The Toronto Film Festival runs September 6-16. Stay tuned for more from TIFF here at Movieline. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . 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The theatrical trailer for Steven Spielberg’s highly anticipated Lincoln will debut at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on Sept. 13 during a Google + Hangout with the director and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt , who plays Robert Todd Lincoln. Dreamworks Pictures and Google Play announced today that the trailer for the film, which stars Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th President of the United States, will be the first to launch during a Google + Hangout, which will be broadcast live on the ABC SuperSign in New York City’s Times Square. The event, which allows people to connect face-to-face-to-face via group video chat, will also feature a live conversation with Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt. The film is slated for a Nov. 16 release. Fans interested in participating are asked to upload a short video to their own YouTube channel with the #LincolnHangout tag explaining who they are, why they are interested in Lincoln and what they would like to ask Spielberg and Gordon-Levitt about the film. (The link above explains more about submissions.) Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Tuesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, a 3-D newcomer tops the weekend’s Specialty Box Office among newbies. Roman Coppola ‘s second directorial effort with Charlie Sheen is headed to theaters. And, the Locarno Film Festival appoints a new Artistic Director following the sudden departure of its former head. Venice Golden Lion Watch at Festival Midpoint: The Master Dominates Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master is emerging as the favorite half-way through the Venice Film Festival. Of the eight films that have officially screened, the post-war “relationship opus set agains the backdrop of a religion that resembles Scientology has received the best score in a festival poll of critics,” Deadline reports . Second Hobbit Movie Re-Named The third installment in the upcoming Hobbit movie trilogy, The Hobbit: There and Back Again will be released worldwide in July, 2014. That will be only seven months after the second film will be released. The second installment also has a new title, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug arriving December 13, 2013. It was originally titled There and Back Again . The first movie, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey opens December 14th of this year, Reuters reports . Specialty Box Office: Flying Swords 3-D Tops Newcomers; Samsara , Sleepwalk with Me Expand Strong New specialty movies mostly coasted through the holiday weekend, with newcomers ranging from fairly solid to weak in their Labor Day bows. Indomina Releasing’s IMAX 3D opener Flying Swords of Dragon Gate soared to the top of the pack with a decent $8,333 average for its opening in 15 locations, while Millennium’s Little Birds launched in one theater, grossing $8,314, Deadline reports . Roman Coppola’s Charles Swan III Heads to Theaters Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III starring Charlie Sheen will roll out in theaters in February. NYC-based A24 picked up rights to the film, while digital platform FilmBuff will handle domestic digital distribution. Set in L.A. the comedy follows a graphic designer (Sheen) whose breaks and needs find repair after his girlfriend leaves him, TOH reports . Locarno Names Italian Journalist as New Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian, an Italian journalist, author and festival programmer will take over as the Locarno Film Festival’s Artistic Director following the sudden departure of Olivier Pere on August 27th, THR reports .
How to Survive a Plague turned on the water-works and other outpourings of emotion when it debuted at Sundance earlier this year. Its subjects, the driving-forces behind AIDS activist groups ACT-Up (the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) and TAG (Treatment Action Group), took matters into their own hands against a massive tide of fear, discrimination and government failure to deal with the disease that ravaged the gay community in the ’80s and ’90s. Director David France profiles the heroes of the movement who moved the needle in forging treatment and official recognition against extraordinary odds, and today Movieline has your first look at the official poster. Sundance Selects will debut the feature September 21st following the film’s healthy festival run to date. Below, find the poster designed by Sam Smyth and the trailer along with the official synopsis: How to Survive a Plague is the story of the brave young men and women who successfully reversed the tide of an epidemic, demanded the attention of a fearful nation and stopped AIDS from becoming a death sentence. This improbable group of activists bucked oppression and, with no scientific training, infiltrated government agencies and the pharmaceutical industry, helping to identify promising new medication and treatments and move them through trials and into drugstores in record time. In the process, they saved their own lives and ended the darkest days of a veritable plague, while virtually emptying AIDS wards in American hospitals in the process. The powerful story of their fight is a classic tale of empowerment and activism that has since inspired movements for change in everything from breast cancer research to Occupy Wall Street. Their story stands as a powerful inspiration to future generations, a road map, and a call to arms. This is how you change the world. Official Selection: Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New films, San Francisco International Film Festival, Provincetown International Film Festival, Outfest Documentary Centerpiece, Seattle International Film Festival. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
