Fire in the Blood (2013)

Directed by

Dylan Mohan Gray

Genre

documentary film, LGBTQ-related film

Country

India

Runtime

1h 27m

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 19 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary argues that pharmaceutical companies and Western governments deliberately blocked cheap HIV/AIDS medicines from reaching people in Africa and other poor regions. It shows activists and leaders fighting this policy which it says caused millions of unnecessary deaths.

angryurgentinformationalsoberingpoliticalfast-pacedindignant

What happens

Fire in the Blood is a 2013 documentary film by Dylan Mohan Gray depicting what it claims is the intentional obstruction of access to low-cost antiretroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS to people in Africa and other parts of the global south, driven by multinational pharmaceutical companies holding patent monopolies and various Western governments (above all those of the United States, European Union and Switzerland) consistently supporting these companies. The film claims that the battle against what it refers to as a "genocidal blockade," which it estimates to have resulted in no less than ten to twelve million completely unnecessary deaths, was fought and (at least temporarily) won. Fire in the Blood features contributions from former US President Bill Clinton, intellectual property activist James Love, global health reporter Donald McNeil, Jr. of The New York Times, HIV/AIDS treatment activist Zackie Achmat, pioneering generic drug maker Yusuf Hamied, former Pfizer executive-turned-whistleblower Peter Rost, Ugandan AIDS physician Peter Mugyenyi, and Nobel Prize-laureates Desmond Tutu and Joseph Stiglitz. The film is narrated by Academy Award-winning actor William Hurt, who lent his voice to the film on a pro bono basis because he felt the story and subject matter were so important. In November 2013, Fire in the Blood set a new record for the longest theatrical run by a non-fiction feature film in India: five weeks. In November 2018, Australian journalist and documentary filmmaker John Pilger included Fire in the Blood among his selection of "26 landmark documentary films of the past seven decades." (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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