For a stretch of time in the 1980s and 90s, the word buddy meant, in modern gay life, someone who had agreed to be a friend to a man dying of AIDS. A buddy visited. Listened to stories. Told stories. Laughed. Cried. And above all, tried to make sure that the frail man in the bed knew that he had not been forgotten. That his passing would be noted. And mourned. David (David Schachter), a naive graduate student, has volunteered to work as a 'buddy' for people dying of AIDS. Assigned to the intensely political Robert (Geoff Edholm), a lifelong activist whose friends and family have abandoned him following his diagnosis, the two men, each with notably different world views, soon discover common bonds, as David's inner activist awakens and Robert's need for emotional release is fulfilled. In the 1985 film Buddies, writer-director Arthur J. Bressan Jr. did a simple yet radical thing: He told the story of one such friendship and, in the process, made the first feature-length drama about AIDS. Shot on 16mm film in nine days, Buddies earned respectful reviews and a few festival prizes, but has faded from view over the years. Bressan died of AIDS in July 1987; now, thanks to the efforts of his sister Roe Bressan and film historian Jenni Olson, Buddies has received a 2K digital restoration from Vinegar Syndrome. Thirty-three years after its initial release, the film remains as affecting as ever.