Hamptons Pride Honors World AIDS Day With Quilts On Display From National AIDs Memorial, Film Showing

WAINSCOTT, NY — Hamptons Pride, in promotional partnership with LTV Studios, continues its popular film series with "Philadelphia," directed by Jonathan Demme. The Oscar-winning film features performances by Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Antonio Banderas, Mary Steenburgen, and Joanne Woodward.

A discussion follows the screening, which takes place on November 30. Advance tickets are $10 plus $2.58 service fee and are available here.

Day-of tickets are $15 and $5 for students 13 and over with ID (parental guidance suggested).

Inda Eaton will perform Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" before the film on November 30.

"Philadelphia" is presented in tandem with Hamptons Pride’s second annual World AIDS Day observance, with 40 quilts on display from the National AIDS Memorial.

Doors open at 2:30 p.m. on Nov. 30 for quilt viewing until the movie begins. Viewing the quilts is always free, but those who stay for the movie are asked to purchase a ticket to offset some of the many associated costs. The event ends at 7:30 p.m.

Next, on Monday, Dec. 1, World AIDS Day, students from area high schools are invited in the morning and early afternoon to a guided viewing and discussion of the history of the quilts and of the AIDS crisis.

"Lovingly made by friends and family, the quilts are intimate stories told in textiles, honoring individuals who died from AIDS," organizers said.

The AIDS Memorial Quilt is the largest community arts project in history, benefiting from thousands of hours of volunteer service, and they are viewed around the world at events. Each individual quilt measures 3 feet by 6 feet, part of a larger tapestry weighing 54 tons and representing over 110,000 individuals — still just a fraction of those who have died of AIDS nationally and globally.

“LTV Studios is a remarkable venue that gives us the opportunity to bring together both our film series and our World AIDS Day observance,” said Tom House, president and founder of Hamptons Pride. “The community will get to see one of the seminal — and Hollywood’s first — LGBTQ- and AIDS-themed films, with quilts from the Memorial all around them. It doesn’t get more meaningful than that.”

He added: "Our film series’s mission is to expose as many people as possible to important LGBTQ+ films that foster understanding, empathy, and support. They widen everyone’s world. At the same time, keeping the quilts on view provides ongoing support to surviving loved ones and educates a generation that knows very little about the AIDS crisis of the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s."

On Dec. 1, the general public is welcome at 3 p.m. to view the quilts, and a ceremony honoring East Enders who have passed from AIDS will begin at 5 p.m. Families and friends will speak of their loved ones represented in the panels, and we will have a "Calling of the Names" processional until 6 p.m.

The event ends at 7:30 p.m.

Both days are sponsored by Golden Pear Cafe with muffins, fruit, sweets, and bottled water. Other
beverages and snacks are available at the LTV cash bar. On Dec. 1, the Tavern on Wheels food truck will be onsite.

Tom House, president and founding director of Hamptons Pride, told Patch that the quilts were leased from the The National AIDS Memorial.

Since the project began in 1985, the National Memorial has collected nearly 50,000 quilts, he said; donated quilts are sewn together into blocks, each 12 x 12-foot block consisting of eight quilts.

"We have six blocks on display — 48 quilts representing over 100 names," he said at last year's event. "On each block is a quilt made for an East End person who died of AIDS, the majority from East Hampton or nearby," he said.

While the AIDS crisis devastated families and communities in the 1980s, HIV is still a very real issue in the United States, experts say: According to HIV.gov, approximately 1.2 million people in the United States have HIV. About 13 percent of them don’t know it and need testing. HIV continues to have a disproportionate impact on certain populations, particularly racial and ethnic minorities and gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men, HIV.gov said.

In 2022, an estimated 31,800 people acquired HIV in the U.S. Estimated new HIV infections decreased 12 percent from 36,300 in 2018 to 31,800 in 2022. In 2022, 37,981 people ages 13 and older received an HIV diagnosis in the U.S. and six territories and freely associated states, HIV.gov said.

And, the organization added, "HIV diagnoses are not evenly distributed across states and regions. The highest rates of new diagnoses continue to occur in the South."

House previously told Patch that the idea for the Names Project was born when he watched a miniseries in 2023 called "Fellow Travelers" and knew in his heart that bringing the quilt to East Hampton would align perfectly with Hampton Pride's mission.

House said the Names Project was another way to serve the community, in addition to the annual Hamptons Pride Parade and the installation the not-for-profit is planning for Wainscott Green.

"It's a source of comfort and education. So many have lost family members, partners and friends, losses people live with for their entire lives," House said. "Our societies don't always give people all the resources and opportunities to deal with and to express their grief and loss. I know from my own personal losses in the past few years that the need for support is ongoing."

As word spread of the idea for a local quilt display, people came forward,"telling us of their losses. In some cases, we were able to reserve the blocks containing the quilts made for their loved ones," he said.

Specifically, Deacon Sussan Rossi lost her brother Vincent, 31, and Jeannie Behrens lost her brother Jay Langan, 31, in the 1980s, House said.

For House, the project is deeply personal.

"I, like everyone who came of age in the 80s and 90s, lived under the specter of HIV — for a long time, a diagnosis was an almost certain death sentence — and I knew many people who perished from HIV/AIDS. For me, it was friends, men and women, and many co-workers or people who frequented the Swamp when I tended bar there through the 90s. There were people who were hit much harder — especially those 10 or 20 years ahead of me who lost a staggering number of partners and friends and colleagues. In total, it became for many a lost generation."

It's critical, House said, for people to realize that as a society, AIDS and HIV are still very real.

"The United States has lost over 700,000 people to HIV/AIDS. And the epidemic isn't over — certainly not in a global sense," he said, adding that according to the World Health Organization, globally, 39.9 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2023.

Seeing the project unfold has been transformative, House said.

"The project is reminding me of the Hamptons Pride Parade in some respects — when an idea is immediately received and starts to grow by word of mouth, when the project starts to take on a life of its own, I know I've hit on something the community has a need for. That's what's happening here — people joining in and adding their own talents to help it succeed. "

Looking ahead, House hopes to begin a memorial quilt-making workshop, as a way to make the Hamptons Pride Names Project relatable to the larger community.

"While Hamptons Pride has an interest in memorializing our East End LGBTQ+ people, no matter how they were lost, we'd also like to open this workshop up to anyone who'd find comfort in making a quilt for someone they've lost. It may serve as a bereavement group, but also, I think, as a celebration of life. I like what Susan Rossi said — 'It's a way of doing something for the people we miss the most — remembering them, saying their names, telling their stories.'"

Hamptons Pride is a not-for-profit that celebrates and commemorates the LGBTQ+ people and their allies on the East End of Long Island.

"The organization's founding goal is the creation of an historical marker and outdoor social area on the footprint of The Swamp — the last and longest-running gay club in the Hamptons— in what is now Wainscott Green," House said.

LTV Studios is located at 75 Industrial Road in Wainscott.