Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Clarisse Loughrey

Tom Hanks marks 25th anniversary of Philadelphia with moving short film on AIDS

The stars of the 1993 film Philadelphia have come together to mark its 25th anniversary. 

Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, and Mary Steenburgen appear in the trailer for The Last Mile, a short film which sees the stars share stories of the AIDS crisis and how the film helped tell those stories to the world.

“There was a tremendous amount of fear and a lack of knowledge. It’s hard for people now to realise how intense that moment in time was," Steenburgen says. 

Hanks says: “Going in and out of New York City, you ended up seeing it all over the place ― men were pushing other men around in wheelchairs."

Hanks won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Andrew Beckett, a man who launches a discrimination case against his employer, after he was fired due to his status as an AIDS patient. It was one of the first Hollywood films to acknowledge HIV/AIDS, homosexuality, and homophobia. 

The Last Mile will be released on 15 November. It was produced by Coca-Cola in partnership with the HIV/AIDS advocacy brand (RED), as part of the company's ongoing Project Last Mile, which aims to help improve health systems across Africa. 

Follow Independent Culture on Facebook for all the latest on Film, TV, Music, and more

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.