By Nadine Licostie
The Last One presents an updated history of the AIDS epidemic in America through the story of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. The film traces how what at first was labeled a "gay disease" now disproportionately impacts the African American community, including women and youth.
In the 1980s, as AIDS ravaged the gay community in the U.S., the AIDS Quilt was born as a tool to help promote understanding and treatment. Through the intensely personal stories of those involved with the Quilt, including founder Cleve Jones, The Last One examines how stigma, discrimination, and the lack of access to care exacerbated a disease that now infects over 1 million Americans, with nearly 50,000 new cases every year.
The film follows the path of the Quilt on tour, visiting a variety of communities and people, including a high school where a young African American woman born with AIDS speaks out to fight stigma in her community. Through her story and others the film explores the issues fueling HIV infections among youth today.
Now more than 50 miles long were it to be laid out end-to-end, the Quilt is displayed in communities and schools to promote AIDS awareness, with the hope that the last quilt panel will one day become a reality.
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