Common Threads

Robert Epstein (‘The Times of Harvey Milk’) and Jeffrey Friedman documented the beginning of the Aids Memorial Quilt at the end of the 1980s. In this collaborative artistic project, which continues to this day, memorabilia from AIDS victims is woven together and thus rescued from oblivion and ignorance. This film summarises the experiences of the first decade of dealing with AIDS, the grief over the losses, the anger over the inaction of the Reagan government and the fighting spirit of the AIDS movement. And at a time when the gay victims of the epidemic remained invisible in the media, ‘Common Threads - Stories from the Quilt’ offered up all the instruments of a great Hollywood film, engaging Dustin Hoffman as narrator and Bobby McFerrin as soundtrack composer to tell the story as confidently as possible. In 1989, the filmmakers received the Oscar for best documentary film. An indispensable document of gay history.