Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt

Members of the Peabody screening committee have become increasingly familiar with television depictions of the AIDS epidemic. Most are marked with sensationalism and simple-mindedness by focusing on the painfully slow and horrific way most AIDS patients die. To its credit, this film draws attention to the epidemic by celebrating the lives of its victims, not their painful demise. As a moving camera selects individuals from the stirring AIDS Memorial Quilt, and brings the victims back to life through the words of family and friends, this powerful film forces us to face the epidemic head-on. We realize that AIDS patients are people “like us,” whose talents, hopes and dreams have been curtailed by a killer virus. Credit goes to the exceptional production team of Bill Couturie, Bob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman and Home Box Office, for Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt.