Educational Media Reviews Online

The Last One is a wonderful film chronicling the development of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. Producer/director Nadine C. Lacostie succeeds at encapsulating the political, medical, emotional, societal and artistic issues that gave birth to this powerful project. The film also succeeds at reminding us that the fight against AIDS/HIV still continues and the project won’t be finished until the last quilt square for the last person to ever die of the disease is complete, giving the film it’s title—The Last One.

In the mid 1980s, as thousands of people were dying from AIDS, at a memoriam for Harvey Milk and George Mosconi in San Francisco, Milk’s colleague and friend Cleve Jones, called attention to the problem by asking people to write the names of someone they knew who had died of AIDS on poster board in an effort not to forget. Everyone then posted their placards of names on the Federal Building. As Jones looked at all the names on the wall it reminded him of a quilt, and the ingenious idea came to him to create the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Adding a name that day was Gert McMullin. Realizing that she needed to help in this fight, she devoted her life to the project and has sewn just about every square in the quilt at one time or another. Volunteers came forward and as the quilt grew, so did its ability to reach millions of people. The NAMES Foundation continues with offices worldwide helping provide a sanctuary for those AIDS/HIV victims most in need as well as continuing to add to the Quilt.

Lacostie has done an exceptional job of bringing together all the issues that surround the AIDS crisis—the bigotry and uneducated statements and decision making by those in power in the 1980s, as well as the love and dedication of those not willing to let the government at the time keep the facts about this disease away from the public—people like Jones and McMullin who are still so impassioned about the project. Letting them tell their stories is a vital part of what makes this film work. Particularly insightful is a testimony from C. Everett Koop, U.S. Surgeon General from 1982-1989, divulging the archaic policies surrounding the government’s treatment of the AIDS crisis. Lacostie expertly highlights the ability of the Quilt to act as a non-threatening, visually beautiful vehicle for AIDS activism. As awareness of the Quilt grew through the late 1980s and 1990s, celebrities added their clout. The Quilt makes headlines every time it is displayed in Washington DC at the Smithsonian’s American Folklife Festival, doing its job of creating awareness about the disease.

Sadly, the stigma attached to AIDS and the fight to save lives continues, and the film includes infographic style visuals illustrating the staggering statistics on current morbidity and mortality numbers from AIDS/HIV. It features The Women’s Collective in Washington DC and its inspiring Founder and Director Patricia Nalls, shining a light on the good work being done today for a different population struggling with the disease. The film ends in the same place it begins, with Cleve Jones continuing his work at the grassroots level in the Castro District of San Francisco some 30 years after the AIDS “plague years” framed by scenes of the rows and rows of shelves and plastic bins storing all the pieces of the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

The Last One is eye-opening, and lets the Quilt tell its poignant yet compelling story to continue the movement to not be forgotten. Not only is it a succinct history of the Quilt, but of the AIDS pandemic and associated political issues in the United States from the 1980s to the present day. It also brings out the importance of quilting and the role of that art form in history and in storytelling. It will work well in the classroom and as a tool for activism. It is highly recommended for academic library collections, and will also find a home with public libraries.