On The Downlow
USA, 2007, digital video, color, 52 min.
The follow-up to The Party returns to Cleveland to look closer and deeper, focusing here on four men negotiating their bisexual desire within the African-American community of Cleveland, Ohio, who self-describe themselves as “dipping on both sides of the fence.” The film showcases their secret lives and aspirations. Ray (20) dates straight women and drag queens, or femme queens. He is not into the "boy thing" and has a girlfriend he’s not telling. Antonio (32) spent seven years in jail, and is dating George who has just graduated high school and who in turn, is about to tell his high school sweetheart (who is a virgin) that he is gay and that their future together will never happen as she had imagined. Kerwin (23) has been with many women and men; his parents don’t know but he wants to tell. Billy (28) says the best sex of his life was with his “baby mama” (i.e. the mother of his children) yet he lives with a man. He says he would give up being gay to be with his kids. Strands of family, work, pals, lovers, moms and disappeared dads weave throughout. In the process, the story of a middle-American city with middle-American values, a large black population with denied gay sons and gay fathers, is told. AIDS, the ghetto, prison sociality, and a multitude of after-hours clubs in Cleveland and Akron form the backdrop to the picture as we raise the curtain On the Downlow.
Four Short Reviews of On The Downlow
San Francisco Chronicle: David Wiegand Sunday, June 17, 2007 "On the Downlow"
The concept of African American men being "on the DL" isn't the same as being closeted, and this superb documentary by Abigail Child probably does more to explain the differences and the cultural roots than any article ever written. And if there's a preconception that guys on the DL necessarily live in terror of being discovered, Child disagrees. This is a fascinating and provocative film.
San Francisco Bay Guardian: Huston Monday June 18th, 2007.
Some of the best pure moviemaking in this year's festival can be found within this documentary by Abigail Child. Reflecting Child's background as an experimental filmmaker, On the Downlow finds a lot of poetry and grit in urban Cleveland: a shot of a hooker moseying across the street and a sequence set at a barbecue are great examples of the poetry in motion that can happen when a talented woman picks up a camera…
The REELER. Vadim Rizov
Two of verite documentaries' hottest topics -- ghetto and gay life -- make for surprisingly apt bedfellows in Abigail Child's well-assembled video documentary On the Downlow. Ray, age 18, starts things off by announcing "I'm a thug" and giving a litany of crimes he's been on the giving and receiving end of -- before unexpectedly veering off into his sex life. Child moves from person to person, creating a portrait of Cleveland's underground black gay scene including coming out to one's parents; black homophobia; the persisting rumor that only gay people spread AIDS. This is….revealing …articulate and skilled moviemaking.
THE A LIST MAGAZINE:
With Cleveland, Ohio, as it backdrop, Child's seeks to present the portraits of four African-American men living the secretive and much previously hyped lifestyle of living on the " DL". You know men who sleep with men but try to pass as straight. Child's film gives a rather balanced view of these men’s complex lives, and explores how each of these men view the gay community in very diverse ways. On the Downlow is an evolving project and it seems right, since sexuality leaps out as a topic we in the African-American community need spend some quality-time confronting.