Saturday evening, a documentary film featuring students from a predominantly African-American high school in Pittsburgh will have its local premiere at the August Wilson Center.

"Why Us? Left Behind and Dying" [further described on C-1 of today's Magazine section] is a searing, heartbreaking look into the disproportionately high rate of AIDS/HIV in the African-American community. What makes this documentary unique among cautionary tales about this deadly plague are the voices director Claudia Pryor Malis recruited to tell a story most of us think we already know.

At the heart of "Why Us?" are teenagers from Homewood who interview men and women who have personal, often excruciating insight into the stigma of being part of the AIDS epidemic in a community that, as one subject ruefully observes, "is very good at keeping secrets."

Other than Homewood native Tamira Noble, 17 at the time she narrated the film, the Westinghouse High School students who are the film's primary interlocutors have their identities obscured with facial blurs and weird camera angles. (Students from Peabody High School evaluated the film when it was done.)

Given the honesty with which the Westinghouse students explore inconvenient truths revolving around sexuality, drug use, homophobia, religious bigotry and social stigma, it is a shame we never see their faces. They deserve to be recognized for their willingness to ask probing questions while speaking honestly about how their own conduct often puts them at risk as well.

Several years ago, I met Ms. Malis and producers Vivian Siu and David Guilbault during one of their many trips to Pittsburgh to film at Westinghouse. We were introduced by Chris Ivey, a local filmmaker who was recruited by Diversity Films, Ms. Malis' production company, to work as one of the documentary's two principal cinematographers.

Ms. Malis already had an impressive track record as an award-winning producer of documentaries for PBS' "Frontline" and ABC and NBC News. A graduate of Harvard and New York University, Ms. Malis made it clear she wasn't interested in parachuting into Pittsburgh to impose her ideas on the kids. She wanted to film the students in the act of investigating what it meant to be a member of a group that is the most vulnerable to AIDS/HIV.

Carnegie Mellon University professor Ayanah Moor recommended Mr. Ivey for the project when Ms. Malis put out feelers for a local documentarian with intimate knowledge of the community. Mr. Ivey joined in 2006, two years into the four-year production schedule.

"This came at a really good time for me," Mr. Ivey said. "I actually thought about moving [from Pittsburgh] and pursuing filmmaking opportunities elsewhere" before meeting Ms. Malis.

Intrigued and challenged by the assignment, the North Carolina native provided "Why Us?" with some of its most striking visuals.

"[Ms. Malis and the producers] decided after traveling to Africa that Pittsburgh would be a good spot to conduct interviews that could represent the black community," Mr. Ivey said. "She didn't want to film in New York. She wanted a mix of a small town and a big city that would represent the U.S."

Another benefit of shooting the documentary in Pittsburgh and at Westinghouse High School was the blessing and cooperation of Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt, the Pittsburgh Board of Education and Phillip Parr, the former chief of staff for the city schools.

"Why Us?" isn't designed to make young people turn away in horror from images on the screen. It is a deeply realistic look at an ongoing AIDS crisis in African-American communities that many will recognize immediately.

The documentary features intravenous drug users and public health experts, gay men searching for words that honestly convey their isolation, teenagers expressing their own confusion and fear of the unknown.

Through it all, Ms. Noble, now a University of Pittsburgh student, provides a narrative voice that shapes the reams of medical and social data streaming at us into something we can sympathize with and relate to. It was a stroke of genius to have a young person at the helm.

"Why Us?" has already begun making the festival circuit. It has received rave reviews across the country. Black Pittsburgh owes it to itself to turn out for Saturday's 7:30 p.m. show at the August Wilson Center. Everyone involved in the production of the documentary will be on hand to talk about a problem that probably isn't going away anytime soon.

Tony's Take on Comix by Tony Norman is featured exclusively in the Opinion section on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.