22 May 2009 -- Providence, Rhode Island, USA -- The documentary film, On the Lake -- Life and Love in a Distant Place, by David Bettencourt and G. Wayne Miller, is reminding people across the United States that tuberculosis was the number one killer in their country in the not so distant past. The one-hour documentary, produced by Stop TB Partner Eagle Peak Media, chronicles the lives, loves and losses of Rhode Islanders who were confined to a lakeside TB sanatorium in the first half of the 20th century, when no effective TB treatment was available. The film paints a powerful portrait of the stigma attached to TB, and the terror the disease inspired across the United States, in the pre-antibiotic era. The documentary closes with a hard look at the global TB epidemic today.
On the Lake was broadcast widely on affiliates of the Public Broadcasting System in cities around the US beginning in March and will continue to appear through this spring and summer. It will also be screened at the 2009 National TB Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in June.