LET THE
RECORD
SHOW

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Go downstairs to a theater basement on the west side of New York City and you’ll find Patrick O’Connell tearing tickets for an Off-Broadway show. He’s eccentric, humble, charismatic, and knows everyone in the city who you could ever imagine. He seems like a puzzle when you talk to him, but you’ll slowly learn his story piece by piece, leaving it to you to find the connections. Patrick’s life is as complicated and awe inspiring as the red ribbon he brought to the world. He still believes it was the right decision by the artists (his friends) in the Visual AIDS’ Artist’ Caucus not to copyright the ribbon. To understand why you have to retrace his footsteps and learn all that happened in NYC from 1980 to now. Documented for the first time, the genesis of the red ribbon and Patrick O’Connell in Let The Record Show bring together voices to tell the story of a collective of artists who created a symbol that quickly became an international icon for compassion, and activism, as well as a template for many causes to adopt for their own purposes. Who were these artists? What motivated them to become activists at the height of the epidemic? Our film LET THE RECORD SHOW answers these questions in a very humane way by addressing art in the age of AIDS when artists rebelled to demand recognition for the deaths of their friends and comrades while insisting on visibility, funding, accountability and compassion, for AIDS sufferers and their caregivers. This movement spanned 15 years, mountains of art, a devastated artist bohemia, a government with bloody hands and gross media culpability. The loss, the political actions, the symbols, and the red ribbon- all of these come together for the first time in LET THE RECORD SHOW, painting a comprehensive picture emerging from the puzzle that is Patrick O’Connell.