This intimate film by Kevin Contento shows Black fathers picking up their kids from school, doing the grocery shopping, sweeping and mopping the floor, organizing children’s parties, and doing the laundry. Over the course of a year, the filmmaker, just recently a parent himself, turned his camera on the fathers in his circle of friends in the small city of Pahokee, Florida.
In portraying these men engaged in everyday activities with their children, Contento dispels the stereotype of the absent Black father. Along the way, we also hear about their dreams, feelings, and thoughts. Their interactions convey a sense of responsibility and solidarity, as well as a view of their less than ideal society that is both realistic and hopeful.
A recurring motif is the poetic parable “The Moths and the Flame” by Sufi writer Farid ud-Din Attar, which expresses the idea that you cannot know a situation until you are in the middle of it yourself. The lovingly filmed scenes of Pahokee and its rural surroundings likewise have a poetic quality, as does the accompanying music by hip-hop producer 4th Disciple.
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