Giant condoms and buckets of fake blood: the true story of Aids activists Act Up

The French film 120 Beats Per Minute depicts the urgency of the HIV/Aids crisis through the eyes of the Paris branch of the radical campaigners. Members of the international group recall what it was really like

If activism is all about getting attention, then Act Up, you could say, screamed the loudest. As the Aids crisis deepened, this global network of campaigners used whatever tools they deemed necessary to wake the world up to their plight: “die-ins”, sprawling across the floors of corporations and churches; litres of fake blood chucked over the steps of town halls; a great many public snogs. And they had a thing for big condoms: a pièce de résistance was a huge pink sheath covering the obelisk on Paris’s Place de la Concorde.

This is the story of 120 Beats Per Minute. Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes last year, the French film gives a fictionalised account of the country’s branch of Act Up (Aids Coalition to Unleash Power) in the early 90s, as young campaigners protested against government apathy at their plight.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JmDdKC