Film Spotlights AIDS Memorial Quilt; Reveals Progress, Setbacks and Hope in the Quest to End AIDS; Youth Campaign (Combining the Quilt Display with Screenings of the Film) Aims to Remind Young People About the History of HIV/AIDS and the Seriousness of the Disease
Posted by Melanie Nathan, November 24, 2015.
NEW YORK, NY– Red Thread Productions has announced several World AIDS Day screenings for its feature-length documentary, The Last One: Unfolding The AIDS Memorial Quilt, and released plans for a 2016 National Youth Outreach Campaign that will couple displays of the AIDS Memorial Quilt with screenings of the film. The documentary uncovers the birth of the AIDS Memorial Quilt and its impact on politics, science and the media. Through activists like Cleve Jones, Patricia Nalls, and Julie Rhoad, the film explores the role the Quilt continues to play as a response to a disease that, while treatable for some, still affects vulnerable communities around the world.
“This film tells the story of the people the Quilt memorializes and the individuals who have spent their lives speaking out against the stigma of the epidemic,” said Nadine Licostie, Director of The Last One and executive producer at Red Thread Productions. “It also examines how, despite ubiquitous prevention education and treatment options, that stigma still exists. Discrimination, limited access to affordable care, and lack of social status have led to 34 million infections worldwide, including 50,000 new cases per year in the U.S. alone.”
Since it was released in 2014, The Last One has screened at more than a dozen film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, and continues to air on Showtime. This fall the film will be shown at several special screenings as a pre-launch to its 2016 National Youth Outreach Campaign.
On World AIDS Day (December 1), Patricia Nalls, whose story and organization (The Women’s Collective) are featured prominently in The Last One, will host a screening of the documentary at the E Street Cinema located at 555 11th Street NW, Washington DC. The event is free and lunch will be provided. The film will also be shown on World AIDS Day at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County North of San Francisco, and Jacobi Medical Center in Bronx, New York.
Beginning in January 2016, Red Thread Productions will officially launch its National Youth Outreach Campaign, combining screenings of the documentary with displays of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at 500 schools, churches, and community organizations, along with question and answer sessions. At a time when the urgency around this issue has largely slipped from America’s consciousness, The Last One’s National Youth Outreach Campaign aims to generate a resurgence of unbiased visibility on HIV/AIDS. While new treatments are helping to combat and manage HIV as a chronic disease, young people under 25 make up a quarter of new HIV infections.
“Each generation needs to understand the disease and its history, to better combat the complacency around it,” Licostie said. “Through this campaign, we aim to shine a light on the history of HIV/AIDS and the stigma still surrounding it. HIV/AIDS cuts across race, class, age, and socioeconomic status. People living with HIV, need support and compassion. We will share this powerful message with young people to help them take charge of their health and their lives. We hope this campaign is an antidote to ignorance.”
For more information about The Last One’s upcoming screening events and National Youth Outreach Campaign, please contact:
Read more at about The Last One here: http://thelastonefilm.com
View The Last One trailer here: http://thelastonefilm.com/trailer.html
>See upcoming airings of The Last One on Showtime: http://www.sho.com/sho/reality-docs/titles/3409213/the-last-one#/airings/3409213/the-last-one
Learn more about Red Thread Productions here: http://www.redthreadproductions.com
Read more about The Women’s Collective here: http://www.womenscollective.org
Reblogged this on Fairy JerBear's Queer/Trans News, Views & More From The City Different – Santa Fe, NM and commented:
I am pleased that this film will reach a wider audience. I was there for the first display of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt in 1987, a year later I read names of Massachusetts losses along with Rep. Barney Frank and others at a display of local quilt panels in Boston, in 1989 I went to the display in Washington DC with my buddy Peter whose name is now on the quilt. For those of us who lived through those tough years it is important that lives of the people lost be remembered along with caregivers, medical professionals and activists that worked to see the arrival of medicine that allows people with HIV to now live long lives.