Many thanks to  CBCF, Inc., President Elsie Scott and their ACT Against AIDS Leadership Initiative, Director and self-proclaimed, “Professional Agitator” Lisa Fager Bediako for making this happen.

Next stop for TGOH? A film festival near you…No more previews. Next time–its the full show!

TGOH Producer Tracey Middleton Grant (far left) and Director Paul Grant (far right) with U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas 18th District) at CBCF, NBHAAD Screening

The congregation at The Gallery Church of Baltimore where he serves as Pastor is not predominately African-American. He doesn’t shout when he preaches–his teaching style is convincingly, conversational. And even though he is a young pastor, who seems more far comfortable in jeans and un-tucked polo shirt than a suit and tie–I wouldn’t take Ellis to be a big fan of hip-hop. In fact, he has never even given me ‘a cool handshake.’ Ellis Prince is White…

So, why is he included in a film about black churches addressing a disease that statistically appears to be an African and African American issue?  He asked me the same question.

When I first met Ellis and learned about his vision to host and coordinate ‘City Uprising,’ a citywide HIV-Testing event across Baltimore, I questioned his motives. His church was new. He wasn’t a native of Baltimore but had relocated there after a period of living in New York. Could this be a move of self-promotion?

“It will not take you long after talking with Ellis Prince to recognize his sincerity of purpose. He wholly accepts that even the best partnerships can result in a painful give-and-take to acheive their goal.”

According to the Jacques Initiative an HIV treatment program sponsored by the University of Maryland, in Baltimore, “City Uprising is an annual city-wide event to test hundreds of people. Over 500 volunteers have been engaged in the program. Volunteers include clients of the JACQUES Initiative, students, housewives, professionals and members of the faith-based community from Baltimore city as well as outside of the city. Volunteers’ roles include HIV testing, education, providing psychosocial and spiritual support, distributing snacks and logistics and coordination for testing.” But that is just a part of what City Uprising is. It is a 3-day public service event, coordinated by members of The Gallery Church denomination across the country. The entire event includes HIV testing on the first day and community services at a public school and a public park, subsequently, on the second and third days. Baptist churches have revival season. The Gallery Church has it’s ‘City Uprising.’ That’s just what they do.

What makes this particular event so unique is that Ellis Prince took his vision for City Uprising to Derek Spencer, a son of the traditional black church experience, and also Executive Director of the Jacques Initiative at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. Together, with Amy Lang, former Executive Director of Hope Springs HIV/AIDS Ministry of Baltimore, they formed an exceptional partnership that mobilized 14 area churches—including Black and Latino churches– mosques, synagogues and community-based organizations across the city, to test over 1500 people and link people living with HIV to care during the first full-day of City Uprising.

It will not take you long after talking with Ellis Prince to recognize his sincerity of purpose. He wholly accepts the reality that even the best partnerships can result in a painful give-and-take to acheive their goal. But his singular mission is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.  “We believe if you propel the church you prosper the city,” says Pastor Ellis Prince during their 2010 Planning meeting, ‘At some point we have to move from being neighbors to friends, ‘And when we are friends, at some point, we may even have to lay down our physical lives for one another.’ A hush fell over the room of mostly clinicians and public health officials, before Ellis Prince would continue to speak.

In the spring of 2010, one group of Americans stormed the streets of Washington, DC and many other cities. They were angry about the past and fearful for their future, wanting desperately to prevent the federal government from giving 30 million Americans access to affordable health care. That same summer, on July 21, 2010, I witnessed a much smaller –and significantly younger, more racially diverse group– canvas the streets of Baltimore in groups of ten, to be a living symbol of their faith. It was more than 90 degrees outside. Their mission was to share a kind word and push strangers, with whom they shared nothing in common beyond their humanity, to get tested and treated for HIV.

Pastor Ellis Prince, and almost every one of the five hundred volunteers, that joined his uprising, are examples of our greatest potential.  Their partnership mobilized people of all  races, including the saved and the spiritually indifferent –all working together in the areas of greatest need. Their work represents that fantastic, hopeful America we all like to think we live in when we lay in bed at night—believing the morning will come without incident and the new day will be infinitely better than the one the one that came before it.

To learn more, visit:

www.ellisprince.com

www.gallerychurchbaltimore.com/

When I began the process of making this film five years ago, I had envisioned a much smaller, shorter film. Perhaps it would have been better if I had stuck to that plan.  Now we are looking at a 1hour 50minute rough cut of the entire film that tackles this issue in much more mature manner than I ever could have imagined. I credit that mostly to my own personal growth. It is amazing how much you can change over time. To see the reflection of that growth in  your art is quite humbling.

I never set out to make a film exclusively about the prevalence of HIV/AIDS among African Americans. The news does a pretty good job of reporting the scary stats. I wanted to focus on the work: Who was doing it and what makes them so different from those who are not doing so much?  However, once production began, there were many outside influences that really allowed TGOH to take shape.

Ultimately, ‘The Gospel of Healing’ is  a reflection of the times that we live in. The waves of trauma from the global economic downturn of 2008 washed ashore and crippled more than the banks: It has financially ransacked AIDS advocacy groups, service providers, churches and African American families alike. I know very few people who are lucky enough to have remained untouched by it . Enter:’Obama-care.’  The Affordable Care Act, after all of the drama that came with it, offers a glimmer of hope for the future of our health care system in the United States. It is also a testament to how desperate these times really are. Did you ever think access to health care for all Americans would be so elusive to so many? Or, that after the U.S. has spent billions the distribute AIDS drugs in Africa through PEPFAR combined with the amazing work of other nonprofit global initiatives that we would fall short on domestic funding for AIDS Drugs Assistance Program in so many states?  All of this has made a lasting impression on the film and our approach to it.

The first American American President was just a sweet idea when we began production. Similarly, Facebook had not completely cemented it’s role as our ‘public square.’ The iPad did not exist. This new web site is a vision of this project’s completion. We hope you find it more interactive–as it allows for viewing on multiple screentypes, easier social media intergration, user sharing and much more multimedia content (videos, transcripts, interviews, images). And we hope the content that is presented here  showcases all that we experienced and learned  as we have tried to weave this incredible story together.

Keeping checking back for more, as we look toward the release of the film next summer.  Stay tuned. I promise you, the final product will be worth the wait.

Paul Grant
Produer, Director, The Gospel of Healing

We produced this film with our own funding and in collaboration with several nonprofit HIV/AIDS advocacy and education groups that allowed us to piggy back our interviews on their regional or national conferences. That’s because we wanted to have a different conversation that every other AIDS film has had. We wanted the creative freedom to allow black faith leaders and AIDS advocates to speak in their own voice.  To talk about funding and how their faith influences their work. How they got started doing the work and what were their greatest challenges, and successes?

It’sa numbers game with broadcasters and film distributors. Aim for widest appeal. But, what if you turned the lens the other way and allowed the conversation to be as real as it can be with camera’s in place?  The conversation become esoteric to the community it reflects. ‘Who are these advocates and providers, really?,’ we continually asked ourselves, ‘And how will we look back on them once the HIV/AIDS epidemic is no longer such a major social threat and something else is.’

Let them speak. Let them shine. Our bet was placed on a heightened level of authenticity that resonates beyond tribe…

Now we look to raise funds to complete post production and same names we rejected approaching at the start have come back into play. We have the film we want. It’s edgy. Its raw and our private test screenings among predominately black audiences have gone over resoundingly well. But who will fund this to completion? I’m giving thought to launching a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds online. But I have to admit, I lack faith. ‘This is a film about AIDS and not Denzel Washington taking a shower,’  one BET executive coyly explained to me last year. ‘It’s just not sexy.’

As a filmmaker I am one of a million. Maybe a billion. And I am not so cocky as to believe that even black audiences will support an unknown filmmaker with an ambitious project–no matter how well-presented. —But I have been wrong before.

Time will tell.