The Witnesses

Paris, 1984: A group of friends contend with the first outbreak of the AIDS epidemic. Directed by André Téchiné (My Favorite Season) and co-starring Emmanuelle Béart (Un Coeur en Hiver).

“Bristling with emotional intensity, this is far superior to earlier AIDS-related dramas.” (Tom Dawson, BBC)

"Téchiné's triumph of compassion and craft shames the American cinema's indifference to gay history." (Nathan Lee, Village Voice)

"The beautifully acted ensemble film The Witnesses sidesteps most of its opportunities for high drama, political sermonizing and the jerking of tears." (Stephen Holden, New York Times)

"André Techiné's The Witnesses is one of the finest fiction-film accounts of a free yet frightful moment in time, when the relaxing sexual liberties of the previous decade were being squeezed by the onset of an unforgiving new virus." (Jan Stuart, Newsday)

"André Téchiné’s The Witnesses (Les Témoins) treats the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, first in the United States and then spreading to the rest of the world in 1984, as a devastating medical atrocity in a war that is still raging." (Andrew Sarris, New York Observer)