common thread

Two years ago, I watched one of these prizes go to Jehane Noujaim, a documentary filmmaker. Her TED wish was to create a one-day, global, cross-cultural film festival — a marathon of movies, amateur and professional, whose common thread was fostering understanding of, as she puts it, "the Other."

Definition

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thread (FIBRE) Show phonetics
noun
1 [C or U] (a length of) a very thin fibre:
needle and thread
loose threads

2 [C] a long thin line of something such as light or smoke:
A thin thread of light made its way through the curtains.

3 [C] The thread of a book, discussion, speech etc. is its story or the way that it develops, one part connecting with another:
One of the main threads of the film is the development of the relationship between the boy and his uncle.
Unfortunately my attention wandered for a moment and I lost the thread of (= forgot) what I was saying.

(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)