On the eve of 1987's Second National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, surviving families and friends of people who have died of AIDS prepare panels to be added to a large-scale memorial quilt project. Drawing from the sea of names memorialized, director Robert Epstein focuses on the lives of six people. Alongside the intimate profiles offered, through news footage and interviews, Epstein puts the AIDS crisis in the larger context of social and government response to the disease.
Dustin Hoffman
Narrator (voice)
Sara Lewinstein
Storyteller (Story Subject: Dr. Tom Waddell)
David Mandell
Storyteller (Story Subject: David Mandell Jr.)
Suzi Mandell
Storyteller (Story Subject: David Mandell Jr.)
Sallie Perryman
Storyteller (Story Subject: Robert Perryman)
Vito Russo
Storyteller (Story Subject: Jeffrey Sevcik)
Tracy Torrey
Storyteller (Story Subject: Self and David C. Campbell)
Gregg Baker
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Gary Bauer
Self - Policy Advisor to the President (archive footage)
Robert Bazell
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Kevin Boyle
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Edward Brandt
Self - Assistant Secretary for Health (archive footage)
Tom Brokaw
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Bobbi Campbell
Self (archive footage)
David C. Campbell
Self (archive footage)
Marcus A. Conant
Self (archive footage)
James Curran
Self - Center for Disease Control (archive footage)
Bolton Eckert
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Jerry Falwell
Self - Moral Majority Leader (archive footage)
Virginia Fedosky
Self (archive footage)
Emil Guillermo
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Bryant Gumbel
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Tim Haas
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Robert Hager
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Charles Howard
Self (archive footage)
Rock Hudson
Self (archive footage)
Cleve Jones
Self
C. Everett Koop
Self - Surgeon General (archive footage)
Larry Kramer
Self (archive footage)
Roger Gail Lyon
Self (archive footage)
David Mandell Jr.
Self (archive footage)
Kevin McCullough
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Andrea Mitchell
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Eddie Murphy
Self (archive footage)
Mark Ostfield
Self (archive footage)
Marcia Pally
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
John Palmer
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Hampton Pearson
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Robert Perryman
Self (archive footage)
John Politano
Self
Josie Politano
Self
Randy Ray
Self (archive footage)
Robert Ray
Self (archive footage)
Ricky Ray
Self (archive footage)
Ronald Reagan
Self (archive footage)
Neil Schram
Self - Los Angeles AIDS Task Force (archive footage)
Heidi Schulman
Self - News Reporter (archive footage)
Jeffrey Sevcik
Self (archive footage)
Elizabeth Taylor
Self - Introduction Speaker
Tom Waddell
Self (archive footage)
Gary Walsh
Self (archive footage)
James Watkins
Self - Presidential AIDS Commission (archive footage)