By Matt Simonette

Staff writer

Chicago Department of Public Health officials last week announced the Nov. 12 premiere of “Kevin’s Room: Together,” the third installment in a trilogy of locally produced films examining issues confronting black GLBTs.

The new film, produced by CDPH and Chicago-based Karl Productions, debuts Nov. 12 at 8:30 p.m. at the Center on Halsted as part of Reeling 26: The Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival. The film is also airing Dec. 2 on Chicago television station WCIU (broadcast channel 26) in commemoration of World AIDS Day.

“Kevin’s Room: Together” depicts a group of friends living on Chicago’s South Side who spend a weekend together after a friend is critically injured in a nightclub shooting.

As the weekend progresses, the group becomes a virtual microcosm of the African American GLBT community, addressing topics such as finding safe spaces for youth, changing definitions of relationships and families and increasing numbers of HIV/AIDS cases among gay men, among many other issues.

Like previous installments in the “Kevin’s Room” series, produced in 2001 and 2003, “Kevin’s Room: Together” employs a fictional storyline to depict issues that are very real. The new film, however, punctuates many scenes with faux interviews to give the story a feeling not unlike reality TV.

Simone Koehlinger, director of the Office of LGBT Health for CDPH, said the new format was chosen because “we wanted to (both) stimulate dialogue and create a dialogue. It’s not like we have an overabundance of images of black LGBTs out there.”

A fictional story, according to Koehlinger, gives the filmmakers a broad canvas on which to work.

“There is some element of exaggeration, but it lends itself to creating a story that’s both educational and entertaining,” she said.

After the film’s television debut, DVDs are to be widely distributed throughout the city and available for free in community centers and through CDPH.

“We’ll have a mass release that will get the DVDs into people’s neighborhoods. We want people to cart them around and start discussing the issues,” Koehlinger said.

For more information on “Kevin’s Room: Together” visit www.kevinsroom.org.