Pushing Dead

When a struggling American writer, HIV positive for more than 20 years, accidentally deposits a 100 dollars birthday check, he is dropped from his health plan for earning too much. In this new era of sort-of universal care, can he take on a helpless bureaucracy or come up with 3000 dollars a month to buy meds on his own?

Tom E. Brown, a writer and director based in San Francisco, subtly transforms the always dramatic issue of HIV to create a light, even comic narrative that also includes several hilarious yet moving secondary characters. In this film, Brown explores such serious matters as health system bureaucracy, the gentrification of cities and the trials and tribulations of a being an HIV survivor. The result is a bubbling, really different cocktail that, through black humour and delicious sensibility, ends up talking about friendship, everyday life and the pursuit of happiness.