Available to stream: October 16, 2025 12:01 am - October 23, 2025 11:59 pm CST

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE

Unbridled death, political indifference, and staggering resilience.
Presented by SPS Commerce
This Event Has Ended.
About the event
FAQ

This October, we celebrate LGBTQ+ History Month by highlighting the important work of HIV support and activism. The LGBTQ+ ERG, supported by DEN, is partnering with The Aliveness Project, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit providing HIV support and prevention services.
Through this partnership, we have a series of opportunities to become involved:

Now through October 23rd, we are accepting donations for The Aliveness Project:

– Hygiene items, household items, and cleaning items are being accepted at the MSP office | 9th Floor Lodge

– Not in Minneapolis? Support a local nonprofit near you focused on HIV/AIDS prevention or give directly to The Aliveness Project here.

Thursday, October 23rd, The Aliveness Project will be at SPS Tower to help pack essential kits with harm reduction and wellness items

– If in office, please join us during the hours of 12-2PM CST

Thursday, October 23rd, we will have a conversation with our friends at The Aliveness Project to reflect on this powerful documentary, How to Survive a Plague, and discuss HIV awareness, community health, and advocacy.

– Please join us at 3PM CST for the virtual event!

Faced with their own mortality, an improbable group of mostly HIV-positive young men and women broke the mold as radical warriors taking on Washington and the medical establishment. HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is the story of how activism and innovation turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition.

Despite having no scientific training, these self-made activists infiltrated the pharmaceutical industry and helped identify promising new drugs, moving them from experimental trials to patients in record time. With unfettered access to a treasure trove of never-before-seen archival footage from the 1980s and ’90s, filmmaker 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.

Blisteringly powerful, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE transports us back to a vital time of unbridled death, political indifference, and staggering resilience and constructs a commanding archetype for activism today.

I am having trouble registering for the film.

To register for the film, please click on the yellow “Register” button, complete the fields and enter your invitation code provided by your screening host. If you are having trouble registering on this page, please try copying and pasting the invitation code that your screening host sent to you, registering with a different email address and/or registering through a different browser/incognito window. If none of those solutions work, please contact your screening host.

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If you have clicked “Register” on the screening page and have completed the registration process but you are not able to play the film, please check:

  • Your screening window has begun (found at the top of your screening room)
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If you continue to have trouble, please contact your screening host.

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Please be sure to click “Event Login” and use the email address you used to register and the invitation code for your event.

If you continue to have trouble, please contact your screening host.

How long can I access the film?

The film is available to watch during the dates and times listed at the top left of your screening room. You may watch the film as many times as you like during your screening window.

How can I share this film with my community?

You can purchase a license to screen this and other great documentaries on our site here: rocofilms.com