Buddies

David is a recent graduate not much interested in politics. He signs up to a programme providing volunteer companions to people with AIDS. He is assigned Robert, a lifelong activist abandoned by his family and friends after his diagnosis. The two agree on almost nothing. But over weeks in a hospital room they talk, and the anger inside David surfaces along with the closeness Robert needs. Arthur J. Bressan Jr.'s film was the first feature to take on the AIDS crisis. The screenplay was written in five days, the film shot in nine, and the budget was around twenty-seven thousand dollars. It is almost entirely two actors and one room. It screened in San Francisco in September 1985. Bressan died of AIDS in 1987 and Geoff Edholm, who played Robert, in 1989. Who it's for: Anyone interested in queer film history, narratives of the AIDS crisis, and low-budget independent film. Who it's not for: The production conditions show; the sound and image are rough. The subject is heavy throughout and the film offers no consolation.