Part love letter, part detective story, SONS OF DETROIT is a film about America’s quintessential city, told through the lens of one unique family.

A white man raised as a “cousin” in a black family in 1970’s Detroit returns home after 20 years away to find the house in ruins and his family scattered.

To piece together what happened, he searches out his cousin, Boo, who is also recently home after 20 years in prison. Together, the two men unravel tangled threads of race, belonging, violence, and love that shaped their lives. As they unearth buried histories, they reveal a possible path toward healing.

An investigation into the perils of silence, SONS OF DETROIT opens the door on nuanced, unflinching conversations about race—and especially about whiteness—rarely seen on film. As it unfurls the story of one American family, the film challenges our perspectives about who we think we are and who we live with.

Sons of Detroit is directed by Jeremy Xido (The Bones, 2024), with producer Amanda Burr, and Executive Producers Lori Cheatle (Nanfu Wang’s The Night is Not Eternal), Joe Brewster, and Michèle Stephenson (Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project), Editors Élia Gasull Balada, Kimberley Hassett, and Katharine Garrison, and music by underground Detroit music legend Waajeed.

With support from Cinereach, the Guggenheim and Jerome Foundations, the Detroit Institute of Art, Reboot Studios, Scottish Documentary Institute, Gotham Pitch, DocNYC’s Only In NY, NYSCA, and the Jewish Film Institute.