‘AMR – Dying to Change the World’ premiere with Dame Sally Davies

The Master of Trinity Dame Sally Davies features in AMR – Dying to Change the World, a dynamic film that premiers at the Cambridge Film Festival this week.

In this startling documentary, actor Brian Cox, of Succession fame, personifies antimicrobial resistance, narrating in the first person how he has used his deadly powers of resistance to antibiotics to wreak havoc with public health around the world.

AMR is among the greatest threats to global health, according to the World Health Organization, yet it is  largely hidden for many people. As UK AMR Special Envoy, Dame Sally has campaigned tirelessly for greater public awareness and global action. 

She attended the 79^th United Nations General Assembly in 2024 and made the case for vital practical steps to address the issue of antibiotic resistance, which will otherwise lead to the deaths of an estimated 1.91 million people a year by 2050.

AMR – Dying to Change the World brings this invisible crisis into focus, examining the key drivers of resistance, including inappropriate use of antibiotics in agriculture, the circulation of poor-quality or counterfeit medicines – particularly in low- to middle-income countries – and the rapid global spread of resistant infections.

The film combines scientific expertise, including from Dame Sally, and testimonies from patients who have experienced the consequences of AMR, and families who have lost relatives as a result.

No-one is immune as Dame Sally and the film’s director Alex Tweddle will make clear in a live Q&A after the Thursday screening at the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. They share in common losing a relative to the consequences of antibiotic resistance.

Dame Sally said:

This is a really powerful approach to telling the deadly story of AMR. But as the film makes clear, it needn’t always be this way. We know what we as a society and world need to do to ensure that antibiotics remain available and keep the doing the brilliant job they have done since Alexander Fleming invented them.

I empathise with the film director, who lost his mother to sepsis that could not be treated. My goddaughter died from an antibiotic resistant infection. This will happen more and more if we don’t act.

Book tickets for AMR-Dying to Change the World | Cambridge Film Festival