The Cannes award-winning French language film follows fictional, but rooted in real life, experiences of members of HIV/AIDS activist group ACT UP in the '90s, of which Campillo was a part.

Last May, Robin Campillo&rsquo;s film BPM (the French title is 120 battements par minute) won the second most important prize at Cannes, the Grand Prix, and subsequently made waves in French theaters. Drawn solely from Campillo and co-writer Philippe Mangeot&rsquo;s memories of their time in HIV/AIDS activism group ACT UP in the 1980s is a capsule of a pivotal time in queer history.

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Campillo&rsquo;s third feature (after Les Revenants [2004] and Eastern Boys [2013]) begins at an ACT UP meeting, where we are introduced to the group&rsquo;s war with pharmaceutical companies and politicians for, among other things, the test results for a new drug to treat HIV. There, we meet Sean (Nahuel P&eacute;rez Biscayart), a young activist who is as sick as he is fed up with the political situation.

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Spoilers:&nbsp;Enter Nathan (Arnaud Valois): a gentle, handsome, HIV-negative new member. They bond during ACT UP actions like splashing the offices of a pharmaceutical company with fake blood and taking over high school classes to hand out condoms against administrators wishes. They flirt with each other in between the arguments at contentious meetings, and have a brief romance before Sean falls gravely ill.

The film is magical in its depiction of the time. Club scenes, gauzily shot, act as buffers between intense scenes of action and violence. Sex &mdash; like a scene with talk of former lovers, or a handjob for a bedridden Nathan &mdash; is rendered with a quiet intimacy that it is so rarely given in gay films, unless, of course, it&rsquo;s completely panned over like in 2017&rsquo;s breakout queer film Call Me By Your Name. In BPM, activism isn&rsquo;t as glamorized, often acting as an agent of change, but also a catalyst of failure and internal clashes.

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Though the film won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Foreign Language Film and is nominated for an Independent Spirit Award, it never really took off in theaters in the States. Nor did it get a deserved Oscar nomination,&nbsp;which is a shame. (Thankfully, it is <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/bpm-beats-per-minute/id1288449020">now available</a> to rent or buy outside of France.)

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A Deep Dive into BPM with Director Robin Campillo

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A Deep Dive into BPM with Director Robin Campillo

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