He buttonholed experts on adolescent anger during breaks at conferences he attended around the country. He poured his own painful life experiences into the project.
“I know how to make $1 out of 15 cents,” he said. He packed one bag with clothes and a second bag with a small digital camera, lights and portable filmmaking equipment and went on the road.
“I ate a lot of bologna sandwiches,” he said.
Braswell will premiere the one-hour independent film Thursday at Spectrum 8 Theatres, followed by a question-and-answer period. He hopes to generate a constructive conversation about a contentious topic in the African-American community: that absent fathers are exacting a terrible toll on black youngsters, whose deep sorrow causes them to act out in destructive ways.
“I’m not being critical of black men as much as urging accountability and trying to get them to recognize a problem, to step up and to tell their story as a way of being able to release the pain and begin to forgive and to heal,” he said.
There is a confessional tone to the film, in addition to the testimony of experts. Braswell said he has learned from the anger he felt over the abandonment of his own father. He was raised in Brooklyn by a single mother and managed to break the cycle by acknowledging and repairing his own lack of involvement with his daughter after a split with her mother.