Linn da Quebrada is a black transwoman from impoverished periurban São Paulo; she is also a pop performer who raises her voice for queers of colour from the favelas. Accompanied by her childhood friend and partner in crime, black transwoman and singer Jup do Bairro, her concerts are nothing short of dazzling. Aided by exorbitant costumes and plenty of twerking, her performances are onslaughts of electro against Brazil’s white heteronormative gender order and the machismo of the country’s funk scene.

In Paris in the early 1990s, a group of activists goes to battle for those stricken with HIV/AIDS, taking on sluggish government agencies and major pharmaceutical companies in bold, invasive actions. The organization is ACT UP, and its members, many of them gay and HIV-positive, embrace their mission with a literal life-or-death urgency. Amid rallies, protests, fierce debates and ecstatic dance parties, the newcomer Nathan (Valois) falls in love with Sean (Biscayart), the group’s radical firebrand, and their passion sparks against the shadow of mortality as the activists fight for a breakthrough. Simultaneously a period-piece, a heartbreaking love story, a medical drama, and an activist procedural, BPM is one of the most emotionally gripping films of the year. Undeniably powerful in its ability to connect with the viewer on multiple levels, Campillo doesn’t shy away from the messy details of life, sex, death, or parliamentary procedure but he marries the bad times to transcendent moments of cinematic bliss.