A Closer Walk is Robert Bilheimer's documentary film about the global AIDS epidemic. Narrated by Glenn Close and Will Smith, A Closer Walk features cinematography by Richard D. Young, interviews with the Dalai Lama, Bono, and Kofi Annan, and musical contributions by Annie Lennox, The Neville Brothers, Dido, Eric Clapton, Moby, Geoffrey Oryema, and Sade.

Subjects and storylines encompass the broad spectrum of the global AIDS experience and include people with HIV/AIDS from all walks of life; AIDS children and orphans and those caring for them; doctors, nurses, and social workers; human rights advocates; and prominent scientists, economists, researchers, government leaders, and NGO officials. The film's basic themes remain, what are the underlying causes of AIDS; the relationship between health, dignity, and human rights; and the universal need for action, compassion, and commitment to counter what has become the worst plague in human history.

Conceived in 1996 with the late Jonathan Mann -- widely regarded as the architect of the international response to global AIDS^{[citation needed]} -- A Closer Walk took three years to develop. For the film, more than 50 women, men, and young people have been interviewed or profiled in the following regions and locations: Uganda, South Africa, Haiti, Switzerland, India, Nepal, Ukraine, Cambodia, and various locations in the United States including New York City, Kansas City, San Francisco, and Cambridge. Production of A Closer Walk began in February 2000, and was completed in December 2002.

Willie Hugh Nelson (pronounced /wɪli nɛlsən /; born April 30, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie (1973), combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger (1975) and Stardust (1978), made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed at the end of the 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.

Louis Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.

Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an "inventive" cornet and trumpet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performance. With his instantly recognizable deep and distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also greatly skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics).

Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong's influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general. Armstrong was one of the first truly popular African-American entertainers to "cross over," whose skin-color was secondary to his music in an America that was severely racially divided. It allowed him socially acceptable access to the upper echelons of American society that were highly restricted for a black man. While he rarely publicly politicized his race, often to the dismay of fellow African-Americans, he was privately a strong supporter of the Civil Rights movement in America.^{[citation needed]}