Daybreak (1993 film)

Last updated
Daybreak
Genre
Based onBeirut
by Alan Bowne
Written by Stephen Tolkin
Directed byStephen Tolkin
Starring
Music by Michel Colombier
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
Production
Executive producers
Producer John Bard Manulis
Cinematography Tom Sigel
Editors
  • Brunilda Torres
  • Lois Freeman-Fox
Running time91 minutes
Production company HBO Showcase
Budget$3 million [1]
Original release
NetworkHBO
ReleaseMay 8, 1993 (1993-05-08)

Daybreak is a 1993 American sci-fi thriller television film written and directed by Stephen Tolkin, based on the 1987 Off-Broadway play Beirut by Alan Bowne. It stars Moira Kelly, Cuba Gooding Jr., Martha Plimpton, and Omar Epps, and aired on HBO on May 8, 1993.

Contents

Plot

The film is set in the near future in a more authoritarian United States. It deals with the social persecution and criminalization of people who are infected with a sexually transmitted infection similar to HIV. Those who test positive for the disease are forcibly placed into quarantine camps. In the quarantine camps they are tattooed with a P by the authorities to indicate their positive status and shot if they try to escape. The quarantine camps are dilapidated places where patients are left to die without care or contact with the outside world.

Blue is a young woman who earns a living scavenging metal in the city. She goes with a friend who wants to be tested to a Helping Hand clinic. The clinic has the sinister slogan "Making your hard choices easier". Outside the clinic they are given a card warning them against getting tested there. The card demands "Why is sickness a crime? Why is hospital a prison? Why does the helping hand hold a gun?". Blue is disturbed by this warning and meets an activist in the resistance called Torch.

The resistance works to prevent the quarantine of those who are positive. They arrange testing outside the official system so that they will not be quarantined. They rescue people being held by the Helping Hand clinic in order to give them medicine, care, and understanding. They distribute condoms and clean needles to help prevent the spread of the disease. This is contrasted with government advertisements for the Helping Hand clinics that threaten "The only way is not to play".

A relationship develops between Blue and Torch and it is revealed that Torch is positive. Torch is arrested because of his activism and when the police discover that he is positive they send him to quarantine. Blue sneaks into the quarantine in order to see Torch. Blue wants to be infected by Torch so that they can live together inside the quarantine camp, but Torch is reluctant to infect Blue. In the end she escapes at his urging and continues the fight on the outside. [2]

Cast

Production

Filming took place in New York City, including Lower Manhattan. [1] [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martha Plimpton</span> American actress (born 1970)

Martha Plimpton is an American actress. Her feature-film debut was in Rollover (1981); she subsequently rose to prominence in the Richard Donner film The Goonies (1985). She has also appeared in The Mosquito Coast (1986), Shy People (1987), Running on Empty (1988), Parenthood (1989), Samantha (1991), Small Town Murder Songs (2011), Frozen II (2019), and Mass (2021).

The Legacy Virus is a fictional plague appearing in American comic books featuring the X-Men published by Marvel Comics. It first appeared in an eponymous storyline in Marvel Comics titles, from 1993 to 2001, during which it swept through the mutant population of the Marvel Universe, killing hundreds, as well as mutating so that it affected non-mutant humans as well.

Daybreak most commonly refers to:

<i>The Hot Zone</i> 1995 nonfiction book by Richard Preston

The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story is a best-selling 1994 nonfiction thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. The basis of the book was Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone".

<i>My Romance</i> (Carly Simon album) 1990 studio album by Carly Simon

My Romance is the 14th studio album by American singer-songwriter Carly Simon, released by Arista Records, on March 13, 1990.

The Caribbean is the second-most affected region in the world in terms of HIV prevalence rates. Based on 2009 data, about 1.0 percent of the adult population is living with the disease, which is higher than any other region except Sub-Saharan Africa. Several factors influence this epidemic, including poverty, gender, sex tourism, and stigma. HIV incidence in the Caribbean declined 49% between 2001 and 2012. Different countries have employed a variety of responses to the disease, with a range of challenges and successes.

Sexually transmitted infections in the pornography industry deals with the occupational safety and health hazard of contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) by workers in the sex industry. Since the 1980s many cases of pornographic performers contracting HIV/AIDS have been reported. However, since the mid-2000s strict adherence to rigorous STI testing, and limiting sexual contact with only fellow tested performers has halted the spread of HIV and other STIs in the industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haitian refugee crisis</span> 1991 crisis caused by political unrest

The Haitian refugee crisis, which began in 1991, saw the US Coast Guard collect Haitian refugees and take them to a refugee camp at Guantanamo Bay. They were fleeing by boat after Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically elected president of Haiti, was overthrown and the military government was persecuting his followers. The first camp reached a maximum of 12,500 people. It was then reduced to 270 refugees who either had HIV or were related to someone who did. The reduction was the result of the US policy adopting a strict policy of repatriation for both those found at sea and most of those living in Guantanamo. The HIV+ refugees were quarantined in a section of the military base known as Camp Bulkeley and faced human rights violations. They were brought to the United States after US District Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. ruled the camp was an "HIV prison camp."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone</span>

An Ebola virus epidemic in Sierra Leone occurred in 2014, along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Liberia. At the time it was discovered, it was thought that Ebola virus was not endemic to Sierra Leone or to the West African region and that the epidemic represented the first time the virus was discovered there. However, US researchers pointed to lab samples used for Lassa fever testing to suggest that Ebola had been in Sierra Leone as early as 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ebola virus epidemic in Liberia</span> Health disaster in Africa

An epidemic of Ebola virus disease occurred in Liberia from 2014 to 2016, along with the neighbouring countries of Guinea and Sierra Leone. The first cases of virus were reported by late March 2014. The Ebola virus, a biosafety level four pathogen, is an RNA virus discovered in 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea</span>

The COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea is part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The first case in South Korea was announced on 20 January 2020. The number of confirmed cases increased on 19 February by 20, and on 20 February by 58 or 70, giving a total of 346 confirmed cases on 21 February 2020, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), with the sudden jump mostly attributed to "Patient 31" who participated in a gathering at a Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony church in Daegu.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 virus. The first case of the virus in Sri Lanka was confirmed on 27 January 2020, after a 44-year-old Chinese woman from Hubei, China, was admitted to the Infectious Disease Hospital in Angoda, Sri Lanka. As of 15 December 2022, a total of 671,776 COVID-19 cases had been recorded in the country, 654,919 patients had recovered from the disease, and 16,814 patients had died.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan was a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. On 2 March 2020, the Ministry of Health confirmed the first case in Jordan.

The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the U.S. state of Missouri in March 2020. A university student who had recently been to Italy, was the first index case for COVID-19 in Missouri. She was treated at Mercy Hospital St. Louis. As of February 8, 2021, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has confirmed 502,432 cumulative cases and 7,562 deaths.

The COVID-19 pandemic in Suriname was caused by Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Suriname on 13 March 2020. The case was a person who travelled from the Netherlands the previous week. On 3 April 2020, one person died. On 3 May 2020, all nine cases had recovered. On 18 May, an eleventh case was identified.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COVID-19 pandemic in Belize</span> Ongoing COVID-19 viral pandemic in Belize

The COVID-19 pandemic in Belize is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. The virus was confirmed to have reached Belize on 23 March 2020.

Los Frikis or the Frikis is a Cuban punk subculture that originated in the 1980s. As Cuban radio stations rarely played rock music, Frikis often listened to music by picking up radio frequencies from stations in nearby Florida. While many Frikas in the early 1990s entered AIDS clinics by knowingly injecting HIV-positive blood into them, others began congregating at El patio de María, a community centre in Havana that was one of the few venues in the city that allowed rock bands to play. Some Frikis also participate in squatting as an act of political defiance.

COVID-19 pandemic on <i>Diamond Princess</i> COVID-19 viral pandemic on Diamond Princess

The Diamond Princess is a British-registered luxury cruise ship that is operated by Princess Cruises, a holiday company based in the United States and Bermuda. In February 2020, during a cruise of the Western Pacific, cases of COVID-19 were detected on board. The vessel was quarantined off Japan for two weeks, after which all remaining passengers and crew were evacuated. Of the 3,711 people on board, 712 became infected with the virus – 567 of 2,666 passengers, and 145 of 1,045 crew. Figures for total deaths vary from early to later assessments, and because of difficulties in establishing causation. As many as 14 are reported to have died with the virus, all of them older passengers – an overall mortality rate for those infected of 2%.

Overseas Filipinos, including Filipino migrant workers outside the Philippines, have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As of June 1, 2021, there have been 19,765 confirmed COVID-19 cases of Filipino citizens residing outside the Philippines with 12,037 recoveries and 1,194 deaths. The official count from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on the cases of overseas Filipinos is not included in the national tally of the Philippine government. Repatriates on the other hand are included in the national tally of the Department of Health (DOH) but are listed separately from regional counts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">White House COVID-19 outbreak</span>

The White House COVID-19 outbreak was a cluster of SARS-CoV-2 infections that began in September 2020 and ended in January 2021 that spread among people, including many U.S. government officials, who were in close contact during the COVID-19 pandemic in Washington, D.C. Numerous high-profile individuals were infected, including then President Donald Trump, who was hospitalized for three days. At least 48 White House staff members or associates, closely working with White House personnel, tested positive for the virus. The White House resisted efforts to engage in contact tracing, leaving it unclear how many people were infected in total and what the origins of the spread were.

References

  1. 1 2 Hall, Jane (May 2, 1993). "A Once and Future Plague: HBO's 'Daybreak' is an allegory that treats AIDS in a political context". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on October 11, 2020. Retrieved November 2, 2022.
  2. Tolkin, Stephen (1993-05-08), Daybreak (Action, Drama, Romance), Moira Kelly, Cuba Gooding Jr, Martha Plimpton, HBO Showcase, retrieved 2024-09-09
  3. Everett, Todd (May 7, 1993). "Daybreak". Variety . Archived from the original on October 20, 2021. Retrieved November 2, 2022.