Visual Aid encourages artists with life-threatening illnesses to continue their creative work. Cutting edge exhibitions at Visual Aid Gallery and community venues stimulate dialogue about illness and art and sustain a creative legacy. The organization is located in San Francisco, California.

Visual Aid Presents:

Filmmaker Forum, an informal discussion with filmmaker Jim Hubbard

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 1-2:30pm, at FilmHouse, San Francisco Film Society's incubator for independent filmmakers, 1426 Fillmore Street, San Francisco

Admission: Free, refreshments will be served. Online registration is required and space is limited.

Film Screening of United in Anger

Thursday, January 31, 2013, 7pm, at GLBT History Museum, 4127 18th Street, San Francisco

Admission (pay at the door): general public $5, students $3, members of ACTUP and Visual Aid artists get in free. If you make a reservation online, we will hold your seat till 7pm. If you don't arrive by 7pm, you will lose your reservation.

Reception for filmmaker Jim Hubbard, followed by film screening of United in Anger

Friday, February 1, 2013, reception 6:15pm, screening 7pm, at San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut Street, San Francisco

Admission: free. Due to limited space, we encourage you to preregister online.

“One ambition [of the film] is to put ACT UP, and AIDS activism in general, squarely in the mainstream of U.S. history, where it belongs.” said Jim Hubbard, co-producer with writer Sarah Schulman of the powerful new film, "United in Anger: A History of ACT UP," which vividly tells the story of the media-savvy and enormously successful direct action group that organized in the late 80s in response to the AIDS crisis. “The other is to inspire additional activism.”

"United in Anger" uses rare archival footage from ACT UP protests and meetings, documenting the birth of the activist group in 1987 and giving an inside account of some of the more powerful protests that occurred well into the early 90s. Some of the footage Hubbard took himself, as a member of ACT UP and a documentarian in those years, always with a camera in hand at demonstrations.

“It was amazing how quickly [ACT UP] grew,” he said, looking back. “There would ultimately be 147 chapters. The first ones formed within weeks of the first actions in New York. It literally mushroomed, people in cities across the country and the world said we have to do something like they’re doing in New York.”

"United in Anger" covers some of the pivotal demonstrations, including “Seize Control of the FDA," and "Stop the Church,” the controversial protest which took place at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral and focused on the Catholic church’s policies around the epidemic. The film also covers all of the organizing around the protests and how ACT UP itself functioned as a democratic group.

"What was really important about the FDA," Hubbard said, "was that ACT UP was able to analyze exacty the way drugs were studied, how they were approved and say,
this is the way to do it, this is a better way, to do it faster, to do more research and to create what became known as the parrallel track, where experimental drugs were given to people with AIDS."

The film shows how the group's structure allowed people to access it and organize, working on issues important to them. "ACT UP allowed people to really rise to the occasion," Hubbard explained. "It was not a top-down organization. 'United in Anger; is about how all these people came together to do this incredible work. It was really important for me to show how these things get done. One of the purposes of 'United in Anger' is to foster greater political involvement by people.”

-- from article: Jim Hubbard, 'United In Anger' Producer, Discusses Film's Documentation Of ACT UP's History, by Michelangelo Signorile, Huffington Post

Protesters, Larry Kramer, Moises Agosto, Fierce Pussy

Call Visual Aid at 415-777-8242 or email Executive Director Julie Blankenship for more information julie@visualaid.org.

A special thank you to Visual AIDS (NYC) for their kind assistance.