Against a static blue screen, a soundtrack of voices and music paint a portrait of the filmmaker’s experiences with AIDS. Screening on 35MM. Part of the True Vision Award program.
Director: Dir. Derek Jarman
Runtime: 76
Fest Year: 2025
A bold contribution to New Queer Cinema, Derek Jarman’s final film is a devastating rumination on color, the void, and AIDS. Formally, the film is starkly experimental—an unchanging shot of the color blue paired with a musical soundtrack and voice-over spoken by Jarman and collaborators Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry, and John Quentin. The narration merges diaristic reflections on Jarman’s disease and impending death with poetic meditations on the meanings associated with the color blue. A monochromatic film, Blue was initially inspired by the work of Yves Klein but morphed after Jarman’s diagnosis with AIDS in 1986, instead becoming about sightlessness, with the screen’s color mimicking the hue that his vision took on as it faded. Blue is a visceral viewing experience like no other and remains a fiercely vital piece of cinema to this day. (CT) This film features discussion of HIV/AIDS. The film screens as part of the True Vision Award.