volunteers to be a ‘buddy’ for an AIDS patient through his gay center, who ends up being witty and strongly-opinionated Robert (Geoff Endholm). Although the two men are of vastly different temperaments, they grow a strong bond and are able to nurture each other's shortcomings. Buddies premiered at the Castro Theatre for the San Francisco International LGBTQ Film Festival (now the Frameline Film Festival) on September 12, 1985. It was shot over the course of nine days with a runtime of eighty-one minutes and a budget of around 27,000 USD. It is the first American film to grapple with the AIDS pandemic as a subject. Shortly after the film's premiere, US president Ronald Reagan said the word ‘AIDS’ for the first time publicly, over four years after the crisis began. Being of novel and heavy subject matter, Buddies did not appeal to general audiences of its time. It quickly fell out of public consciousness until it was restored and re-released in the late 2010s by the Bressan project, run by Bressan's sister Roe Bressan, in collaboration with Vinegar Syndrome and Frameline Distribution. Star Geoff Endholm (Robert) died of AIDS in 1989, shortly after Bressan died of the same illness in 1987. Star David Schachter (David) is now a prominent AIDS and queer activist. "Every once in a while you get the chance to make a statement on film that has nothing to do with your career, with ego, with money - but only with the issues of life and love and death. If Buddies turns out to be my last film, it'll be a fine way to go." - Arthur J. Bressan, Jr. quoted in Vito Russo's The Celluloid Closet Copies of Abuse and Buddies are held by the Hormel Center at the San Francisco Public Library as part of a collection donated by the Frameline Film Festival. Other career endeavours Education Prior to committing to filmmaking full-time, Bressan worked as a high school teacher at Power Memorial Academy, as well as for the US Department of Education. During this time, he would independently produce a variety of Super 8 films. Journalism Bressan was engaged in a variety of journalistic endeavors. The most notable article in his body of work was in the June 1972 issue of Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine in which he interviewed his personal hero, director Frank Capra. The article was republished in a 2013 Interview Magazine