Themes

SONS OF DETROIT is an intimate film about trenchant topics: race, family, the perils of silence, and how personal and historical narratives are inextricably intertwined.

As it retells the history of Detroit from the perspective of a single blended family, SONS OF DETROIT complicates contemporary myths about the city’s “rebirth,” revealing instead a complex, nuanced examination of race and identity. 

Through frank, sometimes uncomfortable conversations, the film pushes the boundaries around how we talk about race. In particular, it offers an unflinching examination of what it means to be white and how white progressives can unwittingly perpetuate white supremacy. 

The film investigates the destruction afflicted on families and communities when histories are silenced, hidden behind shame or fear because they are violent or inconvenient. It then shows alternatives: deep listening and the accountability, reckoning, and repair that can come from it.

It is also, fundamentally, a story about love and an expansive meaning of family. 

In a political period where history is shunned, dissenting voices are silenced, and individual experiences of family and identity are questioned, SONS OF DETROIT is urgently necessary. It offers a vision of what happens when we listen deeply, investigate history with open eyes, and reach out to one another with tough love.