DOC NYC: Films About Health

This year, DOC NYC’s lineup includes a number of films dealing with health and health care.

FIGHT TO LIVE Two-time Oscar winner Barbara Kopple (HARLAN COUNTY USA, AMERICAN DREAM) looks at terminally ill patients who are challenging the current Food & Drug Administration regulatory system for access to investigational therapies that they believe could be life saving. Woven together with the voices of patient advocates, doctors, researchers and the FDA, this film offers a unique perspective on the challenges facing medicinal innovation and the difficulties of drug approval and access.

Expected to Attend: Barbara Kopple

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE Faced with their own mortality, an improbable group of people, many of them HIV-positive young men, broke the mold as radical warriors taking on Washington and the medical establishment. 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. Courtesy of Sundance Selects.

JASON BECKER: NOT DEAD YET A guitar prodigy, Jason Becker burst onto the music scene at the tender age of 13, garnering notice from major industry players. In 1991, at age 19, Jason was hired as the lead guitarist in David Lee Roth’s band, the most coveted guitar gig at the time, but he never made it on tour. Doctors diagnosed him with Lou Gehrig’s disease and said he would never make music again, let alone live to see his 25th birthday. Twenty-two years later, without the ability to move or to speak, Jason is alive and making music with his eyes.

Expected to Attend: Jesse Vile