Buddies
UW Cinematheque 821 University Ave., UW Vilas Hall, Room 4070, Madison, Wisconsin
press release: USA | 1985 | DCP | 78 min.
Director: Arthur J. Bressan Jr.; Cast: David Schachter, Geoff Edholm, Billy Lux
In this deeply moving, provocative drama, David (Schachter) volunteers his services as a “buddy” to Robert (Edholm), who is hospitalized with AIDS. An unusual friendship develops between the two young men. A landmark independent production, Buddies was the first film released that directly confronted the AIDS crisis in America. It was the final film of Bressan, a talented, mutlifaceted, and prolific director who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1987. A new 2K restoration will be shown.
The November 17 screening will now be followed by an in-person discussion with Roe Bressan, Arthur Bressan's sister, who will talk about her brother's work and legacy.
Our numerous and diverse Fall 2018 special presentations include a screening of an excellent vintage print of Roger Corman’s low-budget The Little Shop of Horrors; Douglas Sirk’s masterful melodrama All That Heaven Allows and Todd Hayne’s reworking of Sirk, Far from Heaven; rare 35mm prints of Antonioni’s counter-culture classic Zabriskie Point and Claire Denis sibling saga Nenette and Boni; a screening of the popular recent documentary The Eagle Huntress with producer Stacey Reiss in person; plus new digital restorations of two cult horror comedies from the early 1980s: Basket Case and Strange Behavior, as well as George Sluizer’s great thriller The Vanishing, Powell and Pressburger’s repressed nuns classic Black Narcissus, and the landmark independent Buddies, the first movie to depict the AIDS crisis.
All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.