Leisure Lifestyle: 120 Battements Par Minute The Heartbeat At Cannes Film Festival

: 120 Battements Par Minute Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival Image Credit : Anne-Christine Poujoulat / AFP

120 Battements Par Minute directed by Robin Campillo brings the 1990s AIDSParis crisis to Cannes Film Festival. This film is a moving, powerful, and encouraging film that embraces love, innocence, and tragedy.

Film synopsis This film takes place in the Early 1990s in Paris. With AIDS having already claimed countless lives for nearly ten years, Act Up-Paris activists multiply actions to fight general indifference. Nathan, a newcomer to the group, has his world shaken up by Sean, a radical militant.

: 120 Battements Par Minute Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

The AIDS epidemic was limited in conversation and activism for patients, partners, and society. Antoine Reinartz, actor in the film, says,"There were so many young people who hopes totally dashed, no future. Their individual hopes had been totally destroyed. They engaged together in this collective struggle that is no longer called into question. They achieved something." The organization creation allowed for important conversations to take place and understanding that they were not as alone as they felt.

Developing a cast to recreate a time when misguided fear existed was a challenge. The cast welcomed the opportunity and willing to change their appearances and create an understanding during this time period. The struggle was real. The engagement was the epidemic leading to shape a political movement creating change.

: 120 Battements Par Minute Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

Campillo took this historical experience to create a fictional film. Campillo says, "There are threads to actual events. This is linked to a person in history. The pharmaceutical company is not real. Fiction is also linked to ones innermost life. I tried to show that fiction is something between a collective and intimate experience. This group experience comes to a very individual experience in the film. The fiction in the film comes from the whole group."