BPM (Beats Per Minute)
Robin Campillo depicts the comradeship and tenacity of the gay, HIV-positive men who stormed drug company and government offices in the early 1990s as part of ACT UP in France. Not just a period piece, this film tacitly provides a model of resistance to the forces of destruction running rampant today.
Ends Thursday!
In the early 1990s, ACT UP—in France, as in the U.S.—was on the front lines of AIDS activism. Its members, mostly gay, HIV-positive men, stormed drug company and government offices in “Silence=Death” T-shirts, facing down complacent suits with the urgency of their struggle for life. Robin Campillo (Eastern Boys) depicts their comradeship and tenacity in waking up the world to the disease that was killing them and movingly dramatizes the persistence of passionate love affairs even in dire circumstances. All the actors, many of them unknown, are splendid in this film, which not only celebrates the courage of ACT UP but also tacitly provides a model of resistance to the forces of destruction running rampant today. A release of The Orchard.
Pedagogical cinema made warm and rousing—lively, and against heavy odds.
—Nick Davis, Film Comment
The most vital AIDS drama ever.
—E. Alex Jung, Vulture
The most authentically queer film of the awards season.
—Jude Dry, IndieWire
Campillo’s film offers us hope, a model for resistance, and a reminder that we all live on the same planet.
—Jeffrey Bloomer, The Talkhouse
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