In Bed with a Mosquito 2008

IN BED WITH A MOSQUITO is an intimate portrait of activism and aging in New York City.

Betty Brassell, a 78-year-old retired telephone operator born and raised in rural Georgia, spends nearly every day - rain or shine - protesting in the streets of New York City, her walker currently emblazoned with “Arrest Cheney.” Although she still holds on to her thick Southern drawl, Betty has called Manhattan’s Lower East Side home for more than 50 years, after escaping an abusive marriage and relocating with her children to New York in 1954. When she retired in the mid-1990s, activism became a new calling, even though she had never voted before. Her weeks soon filled with protests, meetings and campaigns. But as life tends to do at unexpected moments, it throws Betty a curveball - she injures herself at a large protest and must be homebound for months. The documentary follows Betty through several protests and her three-month recovery, leading up to her preparation for a large protest against the war in Iraq.