United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (2012)

In honour of World Aids Day Eye is showing the documentary United in Anger. Director and activist Jim Hubbard tells the story of ACT UP New York, one of the most successful activist groups in recent history that played a pivotal role in the battle against AIDS.

Since 2001 Hubbard worked on the ACT UP Oral History project, together with Sarah Schulman. They spoke to hundreds of fellow veterans of this New York group. Based on their interviews, Hubbard and Schulman could reconstruct the history of ACT UP, from their early successes to force pharmaceutical companies to make promising medicine available, and the feelings of community engendered among its members, to the frictions that almost led to the collective’s demise in 1993.

United in Anger (2012) is a unique feature-length documentary, combining archival footage and interviews. Hubbard offers a look at ACT UP’s complex organisational structure and many of its most distinctive actions. How did a small group of people of all races and classes come together to change the world and each other’s lives?

After the film, Jim Hubbard will be in conversation with the film’s editor Ali Cotterill, literary scholar and ACT UP veteran Monica Pearl and media scholar Jaap Kooijman. Moderation is by Jesse van Amelsvoort.