WATCH: Anderson Cooper's Oscar Pick is AIDS Documentary How to Survive a Plague

Cooper and AIDS activist Peter Staley say the film is an educational tool and inspirational model for young LGBT people who did not experience the worst of the AIDS epidemic first-hand.

BY Sunnivie Brydum

February 09 2013 2:31 PM ET

On next Monday's episode of Anderson Cooper's daytime talk show, Anderson Live, the out CNN correspondent sits down with AIDS activist Peter Staley to discuss the Oscar-nominated AIDS documentary How to Survive a Plague. Cooper notes that Plague is his pick to win the Oscar for Best Documentary.

Staley is a long-time gay rights activist who was pivotal in the fight to address the AIDS epidemic on a national scale, and is featured prominently in the documentary from director David France. Although the film is about early AIDS activism, Staley and Cooper contend it isn't simply an AIDS documentary. Rather, Plague is a history lesson and inspirational call to action, directed especially at young LGBT people who did not live through the initial crisis with skyrocketing death tolls and heinous government negligence, according to Staley.

Watch the clip below, and catch the entire interview when it airs on Monday, February 11 at noon Eastern, 1 p.m. Pacific.