House of Numbers: Anatomy of an Epidemic (2009)

What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? These questions sent Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung on a worldwide journey, from the highest echelons of the medical research ... See full summary »

Director:

Brent Leung

Writer:

Llewellyn Chapman

Stars:

Luc Montagnier, Francois Barre-Sinnousi, Anthony Fauci

Cast

Credited cast:
Luc Montagnier	...	Himself - Discoverer of HIV
Francois Barre-Sinnousi	...	Herself - Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
Anthony Fauci	...	Himself - Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Kenneth Cole	...	Himself - Chairman of the Board, amfAR
James Curran	...	Himself - Former Director, CDC AIDS Division
David Baltimore	...	Himself - Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
Donald P. Francis	...	Himself - Epidemiologist, CDC
Michael Gottlieb	...	Himself - First Doctor to Diagnose AIDS, UCLA Medical Center
Harold Jaffe	...	Himself - Former Director, CDC AIDS Division
Daniel Kuritzkes	...	Himself - Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Reinhard Kurth	...	Himself - President, Robert Koch Institute Germany
Joseph B. McCormick	...	Himself - Epidemiologist, CDC
John P. Moore	...	Himself - Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Weill Cornell Medical College
Peter Piot	...	Himself - Executive Director, UNAIDS
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Donald Abrams	...	Himself - Chief of Hematology-Oncology, San Francisco General Hospital

Storyline

What is HIV? What is AIDS? What is being done to cure it? These questions sent Canadian filmmaker Brent Leung on a worldwide journey, from the highest echelons of the medical research establishment to the slums of South Africa, where death and disease are the order of the day. In this up-to-the-minute documentary, he observes that although AIDS has been front-page news for over 28 years, it is barely understood. Despite the great effort, time, and money spent, no cure is in sight. Born in 1980 (on the cusp of the epidemic), Leung reveals a research establishment in disarray, and health policy gone tragically off course. Gaining access to a remarkable array of the most prominent and influential figures in the field -- among them the co-discoverers of HIV, presidential advisors, Nobel laureates, and the Executive Director of UNAIDS, as well as survivors and activists -- his restrained approach yields surprising revelations and stunning contradictions. The HIV/AIDS story is being ...

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Plot Keywords:

science | hiv test | controversy | human immunodeficiency virus | 

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Taglines:

A world without HIV/AIDS may be closer than you think.

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Genres:

Documentary

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 April 2009 (USA)

Also Known As:

Das Kartenhaus der Aids-Verschwörung

Filming Locations:

Australia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Knowledge Matters

Technical Specs

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

A photo meeting between Ronald Reagan and Jacques Chirac wrongly informs that Chirac was the French President during a White House conference about AIDS in 1987. Chirac was France's Prime Minister at the time, sent by President François Mitterand.

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Quotes

Celia Farber - Investigative Journalist: AIDS is the best example of what's really scary, alarming and dangerous about our culture right now, which is that it's a culture of PR. It's a Public Relations phenomenon. The truth doesn't matter, what matters is the image.

User Reviews

Revealing and to many people, a shocking film

This entertaining, fascinating and shocking journey is clearly upsetting to many people that like to present a nice, simple, easy-to-understand perspective of HIV/AIDS without complications. The opinions expressed in it are often contradictory and the evidence from authoritative sources is often deeply shocking to people that they've only been presented with a very cut-down picture of what's really going on. Sitting between two people diagnosed HIV+ at one screening, there were moments when they gasped at some of the views expressed and evidence presented. When one acknowledged orthodox expert said in the film, "a person with a healthy immune system can clear the virus", one of them gasped and said, "That's not what we've been told".

This film raises serious and fundamental questions not just about HIV/AIDS but by implication about the robustness of the way medical science works in reality, the appropriateness of having unquestioning faith in experts and the effectiveness of the media as a watchdog on wrongdoing on fields of endeavour that most people don't have time to analyse themselves.