Film Image
In a Perfect World…
Producer: Daphne McWilliams & Sam Pollard
2015
76 minutes
US
English

In a Perfect World…

IN A PERFECT WORLD… Explores all the requisite dynamics of what it is to be a man raised by a single mother. The inspiration for the film came from the director's own relationship with her son who has a largely absentee father.

Over the course of several years, independent filmmaker and producer Daphne McWilliams began interviewing men about the relationships they had with their mothers and, to varying degrees, their absentee fathers. At the same time, she was raising her own son, Chase, as a single parent. She noticed that as Chase entered his teens, their relationship took a dramatic turn as he began coping with his most formative years and becoming an adult without the consistent presence of his own father. McWilliams realized it was time to turn the camera on her own family to document her son's painful abandonment issues while seeking to help him express and understand his feelings.

Thus the documentary became both a personal depiction of her son's maturation process as well as a sociological overview of what it is like to be a man raised solely by one's mother. Viewers hear the voices of a variety of men from various backgrounds and ages, sharing painfully personal anecdotes and allowing McWilliams to capture their current lives to see the men they've become in the wake of emotionally turbulent and unsettling periods of their youth.

IN A PERFECT WORLD… is both a deeply personal and introspective portrait of a modern family as well as a probing cinematic essay examining one of society's greatest ailments.
Filmmaker Daphne Williams is available for speaking engagements.
Pricing & Ordering
Buyer Type Format Sale Type Price
Higher Education Institutions DSL 1-year License $150.00
Higher Education Institutions DSL 3-years License $300.00
Higher Education Institutions DVD Sale $300.00
Higher Education Institutions Life Digital File License $600.00
K-12, Public Libraries & Select Groups DVD Sale $60.00
Non-Theatrical/Educational DVD Rental $300.00
Semi-Theatrical Blu-Ray Rental $350.00
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Reviews
"An important and timely film. Director Daphne McWilliams bravely explores the health and hardiness of men raised by single mothers... I was struck by how a room full of boisterous teens fell silent as they watched the film that mirrored many of their own experiences." - Sean Grover L.C.S.W, Psychology Today and Author of When Kids Call the Shots
"What's most interesting is the eventual sit down with Chase's own father that proves to be the most revealing interview of them all. A doc that proudly adopts a 'no guts no glory' fearlessness, McWilliams work is near perfect." - Jason Coleman, Starpulse
"A challenging and incredibly intimate work charged with deep emotion." - IndieWire
"A documentary that explores, through Chase's experience and that of other men who were raised without fathers, how they filled the holes in their hearts and prevailed over their feelings of anger, sadness and abandonment." - Sheila Anne Feeney, AMNewYork
Screenings
• Los Angeles Film Festival, Premiere
• Run&Shoot Filmworks Martha's Vineyard African American Film Festival
• Margaret Mead Film Festival
• Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival
• Greater Cleveland Urban Film Festival
• Milwaukee Film Festival
• Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival
• Pan African Film Festival
• New Voices in Black Cinema
• Showtime Documentaries

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TWN acknowledges that in New York we are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee peoples and challenges the harm that continues to be inflicted upon Indigenous and People of Color communities here and abroad, which is why we all need to be part of the struggle for rights, equality and justice.

TWN is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Color Congress, MOSAIC, New York Community Trust, Peace Development Fund, Humanities NY, Ford Foundation, Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and individual donors.