In search of our fathers

Duration: 70

Year Published: 1992

Creator: M. Williams

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: This autobiographical film combines cinema verité footage, interviews and stills to document the filmmaker's seven-year odyssey to meet his father whose name he did not know until he was 24. Opening with a strained phone conversation between Williams and his purported father, James Berry, the film follows the director's quest not only to see him but to probe the dynamics that define his and other African American families. Traveling to Harlem and Boston, Williams seeks to learn about his father and to discern what the Black community feels about single parent families. In Philadelphia, he interviews numerous aunts and cousins to trace the history of his own clan: four generations of women who have raised or are raising children without husbands. Williams also quizzes male relatives who are perpetuating the phenomenon of absentee fatherhood. In Paris, Williams reunites with his ex-patriate mother who determinedly evades discussion of James Berry and the circumstances surrounding Marco's birth. At the film's conclusion, Marco journeys to Springfield, Ohio for a disheartening reunion with Berry who voices doubts regarding his paternity.