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One of the most heart-stirring, transportive cinematic experience you can find this year is in France’s Oscar entry, BPM (Beats Per Minute). Winner of the Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Robin Campillo’s drama is set in early 1990s France as we follow the group of AIDS activists in ACT UP. Ahead of a release later this month, The Orchard has now released the first U.S. trailer.

“The ensemble cast that comprise Robin Campillo’s AIDS activists in BPM (Beats Per Minute) all work together to be the same voice,” we said in our review. “Through this group, the director captures a force that resonates more in message than in any of the conventional, dramatic sparks you might find in a Hollywood version of this story. This is one of the most politically-minded movies to come around in quite some time as Campillo stages heated strategy sessions between the activists of ACT UP like a Godard cinematic political essay post-La Chinoise. Through effective direction, the activism on display here is inspiring enough to rile one up to set aside preoccupations and try to make a difference in the world.”

Check out the trailer and poster below.

In Paris in the early 1990s, a group of activists goes to battle for those stricken with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions. The organization is ACT UP, and its members, many of them gay and HIV-positive, embrace their mission with a literal life-or-death urgency. Amid rallies, protests, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, the newcomer Nathan falls in love with Sean, the group’s radical firebrand, and their passion sparks against the shadow of mortality as the activists fight for a breakthrough.

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BPM (Beats Per Minute) opens at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on October 20 and will expand.

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