Buddies (film)

Buddies (1985) is the title of the first film to deal with the AIDS pandemic, preceding the television movie An Early Frost. Directed by Arthur J. Bressan Jr., who would die of complicates from AIDS two years after the film was released, the film follows a New York City gay man, in a monogamous relationship, becoming a "buddy" or a volunteer friend to another gay man dying of AIDS and the friendship that develops. The film stared Geoff Edholm, Billy Lux, and David Rose.

History
The first widely released Hollywood film to deal with the AIDS-HIV pandemic within the United States of America would be Longtime Companion in 1990. While, news reports about the pandemic began to appear in the New York Times as early as 1981, the fact that many of the initial victims were gay or bisexual men, contributed to how Hollywood, and the society, responded [. The long standing taboo within Hollywood about depicting homosexuality, played a large role in the refusal of the industry to cinamatically deal with the pandemic when it was initially treated as a "gay disease". See also [[Celluloid Closet]] book and documentary film.

In response to the pandemic, and Hollywood timidness, Bressan wrote and directed the film "Buddies" in 1985, and it was shown in a handful of urban, art house movie theaters.