Threads of hope

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Description

This program tells the powerful story of a group of women who banded together and dared to defy the brutal dictatorship of Chile's Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The women-mothers, wives, and sisters of the tens of thousands of victims of the regime's torture and execution-armed only with scraps of cloth, sewing needles, and the overwhelming desire to find their loved ones, set to work to tell their stories by creating arpilleras, colorful handmade tapestries which chronicled the horror and injustice of Pinochet's reign of terror. The tapestries were ultimately smuggled out of the country and sold, with the proceeds returned to Chile to support the victims' families. The program, narrated by Donald Sutherland, explores the compelling stories of three of these women and how through their vibrant and beautiful art they were able to transform their trauma, grief, and their hope into commitment to help the survivors, and in their own way, to help democracy to return to Chile.