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Before Night Falls   2000         R, 125 min. Genre: Drama Director: Julian Schnabel   Cast: Javier Bardem, Olivier Martinez, Andrea Di Stefano, Johnny Depp, Sean Penn, Michael Wincott, Najwa Nimri, Hector Babenco, Jerzy Skolimowski, Vito Maria Schnabel   Noted anti-Castro Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (Javier Bardem) is the subject of this film about a poor boy who grows up and joins Castro's revolutionary forces. After the revolution, Arenas moves to Havana, publishes his first novel, and participates in the gay underground. His actions are considered dangerous by Castro's political regime, and Arenas is sentenced to concentration camps and later is exiled. Finally free and living in NY, Arenas contracts the AIDs virus and ultimately kills himself. What makes this film extraordinary is not the plot; instead, it is the painstaking blend of the movie's sights and sounds that tugs at viewers' emotions. Bardem was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award.