Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt(Movie, 1989)

Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt is a 1989 American documentary film that tells the story of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Narrated by Dustin Hoffman, with a musical score written and performed by Bobby McFerrin, the film focuses on several people who are represented by panels in the Quilt, combining personal reminiscences with archive footage of the subjects, along with footage of various politicians, health professionals and other people with AIDS. Each section of the film is punctuated with statistics detailing the number of Americans diagnosed with and dead from AIDS through the early years of the epidemic. The film ends with the first display of the complete (to date) Quilt at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., during the 1987 Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. The film, made for HBO, was based in part on the book The Quilt: Stories From The NAMES Project by Cindy Ruskin (writer), Matt Herron (photographs) and Deborah Zemke (design). The film relates the lives of five people memorialized with panels: Dr. Tom Waddell, physician and Olympic decathlete who founded the Gay Games; his story is told by his friend and mother of his child, Sara... ()