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By Lucas Gutiérrez. Nahuel Pérez Biscayart was born in Argentina in 1986 and had a brilliant start in local film, theater, and television. But in 2008, at the age of 22, he won a theater scholarship in New York, and in 2010, he landed a leading role in a French film. Since then, he has become a nomad, adding more countries and languages ​​to his work. Today, he speaks with Agencia Presente from Paris and explains that he has no fixed address. His latest film is 120 Beats Per Minute , which won the Jury Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival and is, without a doubt, the biggest success in contemporary French cinema. The director is Robin Campillo, an activist in Paris with the international organization Act Up (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power). During the pandemic in the late 1980s and early 1990s, faced with the lack of response from the US government and pharmaceutical companies, this coalition was created and established branches worldwide. The film was France's submission for the Academy Awards, though it ultimately didn't make the shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film. However, it leads the nominations for the César Awards, France's equivalent of Hollywood. "This is a film that, because of its subject matter and length, wouldn't have had such a wide reach if it hadn't been shown at a festival," says Pérez Biscayart. This is the first of his films made abroad to be released in Argentina. "My character has elements of a real person mixed with the experiences of others who also lived through that time. For example, when they dress me at the end of the film, that story is based on the real-life experience of the producer's boyfriend." -The film's director, producer, and screenwriter were all part of Act Up France. How did you manage to convey all that experience to them? -Yes, the director, Robin Campillo, the co-writer, Philippe Mangeot, and the producer, Hugues Charbonneau. So, all the scenes in the film were experienced by one of them. And while it's not an autobiographical film, it is a kind of new perspective created from their memories. We had a piece of Act Up with us on set. We had three days of rehearsal in an amphitheater where all of us who would be portraying members of the association were brought together for the first time. Philippe Mangeot, the co-writer, gave us a full hour-long talk in the present tense about our situation: how the illness affects us, what it's like to visit our friends in the hospital, the little attention we receive from the government. He placed us in a context of the very present, and I think that resonated with all of us and instantly ignited that fighting spirit. -What material did you work with, and what was your approach to it? -We read many books, for example, Didier Lestrade's, who was the first president of Act Up France and one of the co-founders of the association in that country. Lestrade recounts, in the first person, the events leading up to the association's inception, explaining the entire vision, sharing the intimate process, and so on. He also captures the way those people spoke: their humor, their sharp wit, their openness and candor. Then, the key documentary I watched was 'Silverlake Life.' It's about a couple living with HIV who film themselves as the disease ravages them until one of them dies. That living corpse becomes dead; it's incredibly raw, and that gave me a very concrete idea of ​​the extent to which the disease consumes you. It gave me the image that those people must have seen when they buried their friends, family, and lovers. We also had access to all the archives of the French audiovisual institute, which recorded all the newsreels from that time and showed Act Up's actions. All of this gave us a lot of information. -What's it like working in a language that isn't your native tongue? -It has something very interesting: the language starts to function as a disguise, a soundscape you immerse yourself in and try to disappear or ride that new sound. There's less prejudice regarding the meaning of words. I found that I was less self-conscious about saying certain phrases or expressing emotional states in another language because I felt protected or covered by that other sound that doesn't remind you of your mother tongue. That was good. I realized that acting in other languages ​​also brought me to situations of liberation and less prejudice. -What sociopolitical reality did you encounter regarding the period you were portraying? -This was an epidemic that also passed under the silence of society. (*) Initially, it hit the gay community very hard, as well as people involved in prostitution and intravenous drug use. So there's a certain stigmatization on the part of that society that remained silent. If this disease had primarily affected heterosexual white men, of course it would have been attacked from the outset by the State, in this case, the French State. What happened with François Mitterrand—President of France at the time—who was quite progressive and left-leaning, is that he also didn't want to single out these sectors of society. Perhaps from a very republican and fraternal perspective, not wanting to single out a particular community, this catastrophe was allowed to pass in a complicit manner. In reality, what should have been done was not to point fingers, but rather to say, "This disease is attacking this specific part of society." Not to stigmatize, but to be able to find all the necessary tools to combat it and thus be able to attack the problem at its root. —What do you think this film contributes to activism? —It's difficult to know to what extent a film has a social impact or remains within a very small circle of people. The film tells a part of history embodied by a very small, isolated militant group, even seen as radical and condemned for it. Perhaps, thanks to the film's widespread reach, it can now be viewed from a more sensitive and empathetic perspective. I think the film contextualizes the struggles and perhaps allows the more conservative segment of society to understand their methods of resistance. All the film's achievements also benefit those who continue fighting today and are perhaps considered out of place or, I repeat, extreme, radical. But they are the ones who will ultimately be able to make the world a better place. And, in fact, those who complain or judge them as radical are the ones who will benefit from the progress these groups achieve. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8EKciTV5Z8 (*) HIV and AIDS are not the same: the HIV virus compromises the immune system and, if not treated in time, develops into AIDS .