I was interested in a film on bisexuality and someone said to me that downlow – having clandestine sex with men while leading apparently heterosexual lives – is “the bisexuality for the 21st century.” I researched and found a downlow networking party in the heartland of Cleveland, Ohio whose organizer invited me out. We filmed in a weekend and the results were remarkable, a complex intersection of sexuality, race, and class, that had never been seen before. Intimate and startling.

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.