Inside ‘Cover’:
Locally filmed movie gives the lowdown on HIV/AIDS in the African-American community
By Larry Nichols
PGN Staff Writer
© 2007 Philadelphia Gay News

AUNJANUE ELLIS AND RAZAAQ ADOTI AS VALERIE AND DUTCH MASS IN 'COVER'

The phenomenon of men on the “down low” and the social and health complications of men who have sex with other men while in heterosexual relationships have been hot-button issues in mainstream entertainment for the last few years, especially in African- American entertainment. All one has to do is search “down low” on Amazon.com to find a sizable stack of factual and fictional fare on the subject.

It has been fodder for news and talk shows, exemplified by the very-public coming-out of former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, and more recently when best-selling author Terry McMillan divorced her husband, the young Jamaican who helped her get her groove back, after she discovered he was gay.

ELLIS AND ADOTI

Now this taboo subject is set to hit the silver screen.

Actor and director Bill Duke recently wrapped production in Philadelphia on “Cover,” a feature film due out in October with a plot that tackles the controversial subject of African- American men who are on the “down low.”

Duke, who has starred in a number of movies and directed films like “A Rage in Harlem,” “Hoodlum” and “Deep Cover,” had been working on a documentary about HIV and what would later become “Cover” for quite some time.

“Two years ago, a writer came to me and had a project about AIDS in the community,” he told PGN as his crew was setting up to film at the corner of 12th and Locust streets. “But it wasn’t where I wanted it to be in terms of writing and I worked with her for a year and it didn’t work out. So I brought in another writer, Aaron Thomas, to work on it.”

Real-life events inspired him to get the project off the ground.

“In the middle of the process, my goddaughter calls and says she’s HIV-positive,” he explained. “She had been with this guy for 12 years and he never told her he was on the D.L. and as a result, she’s HIV-positive. So it only added more heat to my passion [for the film].

BILL DUKE (ABOVE) AND WITH FIRST ASSISTANT DIRECTOR STEVE HARRISON (BELOW)

“It’s a feature film that follows a couple that moves from Atlanta to Philadelphia. He’s a doctor and he has to expand his practice,” Duke said of the movie’s plot. “He has friends here. He was born in Philly. In the middle of the entire process, there’s a betrayal that occurs and as a result of that betrayal, the woman loses her faith and [later] her faith is restored in her family and also by the church. It’s a murder mystery. In the beginning of the film you see a murder committed in silhouette. You don’t know who’s been killed or who’s killing him. The entire film is shown in flashbacks where you start with the murder and then you’re in a police station and the young lady says, ‘I’m not going to confess, but I will tell you the entire story.’ And it flashes back into the film.”

“Cover” stars Aunjanue Ellis (who played Mary Ann Fisher in “Ray”) and Razaaq Adoti (who played Mo’alim in “Black Hawk Down”), and features Patti LaBelle, Vivica A. Fox, Clifton Davis and Academy Award winner Lou Gossett Jr.

Though originally slated to film on the West Coast, Duke opted to make the movie here.

“We were going to shoot this in Los Angeles,” he said. “We came in and we met the governor, we met the mayor, we met the film commission and business people. They all said, ‘Listen, we want you to bring this film here and we’re going to treat you right.’ And since we’ve been here, they’ve been nothing but gracious and courteous. It’s been incredible and as a result, we’re going to make more films here.”

Duke also expressed how much the actors appreciated filming here.

“People love Philadelphia. Philadelphia is doing a better job of promoting itself. Patti LaBelle lives here. It’s been a wonderful experience. [The actors] weren’t shy about coming here because they love Philadelphia and they believe in what the movie is about and what it stands for.”

While the plot of the movie is crime/drama, the issues it addresses are real.

According to the Office of Minority Health, African Americans are only 13 percent of the U.S. population, yet accounted for 49 percent of new HIV/AIDS cases in 2005. Of new cases that year, African-American males contracted AIDS at almost eight times the rate of non-Hispanic white males; African-American females did so over 24 times the rate non-Hispanic white females.

“I’m not an activist or politician, but I did want to do something,” Duke said. “So as a filmmaker I decided to make a documentary called ‘The Faces of HIV,’ which tracks the disease. It deals with the various sources that it comes from, the impact on the community, the growing numbers, the impact on our children and women, everything. It involves the church in terms of the church’s position on it. We talk to the Minority AIDS project. We talked to a lot of women that have AIDS and men who have AIDS also to get their points of view on how they contracted the disease. They’re cautionary tales and warnings in terms of what people can do.

“We talk about the cost of AIDS,” Duke said. “I don’t know if you’re aware of how much the cocktail costs. If you’re making $20,000-$30,000 a year, even with the help of the state or whatever, how do you afford it? There are a lot of issues — moral, ethical, personal responsibility, business issues — that we address in our documentary and based on that, I wanted to make a movie that really dealt more clearly with the issue of personal responsibility. Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words, particularly to our kids. There’s a growing number of children that have this disease and the behavior does not reflect a certain consciousness and awareness in terms of responsibility, so I’m trying my best for this film to be entertainment and information to get people to look at this disease and also give them an understanding of the danger.”

That understanding, along with personal responsibility, is just one of the things that Duke hopes audiences, especially African-American audiences, take away from the movie.

“With black people and the growing numbers of AIDS in our community, [we have] to take responsibility for our behavior,” he said. “[We have to] become aware of the fact that no one is going to come and save us. You look at the numbers of AIDS cases these days and the federal government is not doing that much, unfortunately. We have to take responsibility for our own community. I don’t know any other culture of men, other than black men, that if you say to them a disease is wiping out 70 percent of their women in terms of new cases, would stand by and watch that. We’re talking about our sisters. We’re talking about our daughters, our nieces and our young men. When you go to the black community, it’s amazing. People still think it’s still a white homosexual disease. It’s insane. It’s killing us. I don’t get it. Something has to be done and that’s what we’re attempting to do.”