The Gay-Themed BPM Wins Big At France’s Cesar Film Awards

The Cesar Awards are France’s version of the Oscars, honouring the very best in Gallic cinema. This year the big winner was BPM (aka 120 battements par minute/120 Beats Per Minute), which picked up the Best Film Award, long with five other gongs. That included Best Original Screenplay for the movie’s writer/director, Robin Campillo, and Best New Actor for Nahuel Perez Biscayart.

BPM had tied with Albert Dupontel’s See You Up There in terms of the number of nominations, with 13 apiece. However, it was BPM that ended up the biggest winner with six awards to See You Up There’s five.

It will be some consolation to the film as, after being chosen as France’s entry for the Best Film Not In The English Lanuguage Oscar, it failed to score a nomination. The movie is set in Paris in the early 1990s, following a group of activists going in to battle for those stricken with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions. Amid rallies, protests, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, 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.