Nuclear weapons pose "an acute criminal" threat which can only be stopped by grass-roots activism, Dr. Helen M. Calidoctt, former Clinical Instructor in Pediatrics and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, told an overflow crowd of 350 people at the Galeria Cinema Friday night.

Speaking at a benefit showing of "Eight Minutes to Midnight," a documentary portrait of her personal fight for nuclear disarmament, Caldicott characterized the political situation as "really grim... more grim than when the film was made."

While members of two Cambridge disarmament organizations sponsoring the benefit screening distributed petitions calling for an immediate nuclear arms freeze, Caldicott urged spectators to actively involve themselves in the disarmament campaign.

"If we continue in our passivity, there won't be any children left," she said.

Proceeds from the benefit showing of the film will go to the Cambridge Peace Education Project and the Cambridge chapter of Caldicott's Women's Party for Survival, the two organizations sponsoring the screening.