The Death of My Two Fathers
PIRATES BLEND: SUPPORTING MUSIC
Toward the end of his battle with kidney cancer, William Richard Guy filmed himself being interviewed over the span of six VHS tapes. The tapes were meant to serve as a record of his life for those he was leaving behind. He was born in the small town of Waterloo, Iowa, and soon left with his mother for bustling Kansas City. He got married at 18 and had two children. Soon after, he moved to Washington, D.C., and fought for civil rights, before heading north, where he had three more children in an idyllic enclave of rural Canada.
For twenty years, one of those children, Sol Guy, couldn’t bring himself to watch these recordings. Only in the process of creating his film The Death of My Two Fathers did Sol Guy finally confront his father’s tapes, and with this project, he continues the tradition, using the tapes as an entry point for recounting his father’s story—and his own—directly to his two teenage kids. It’s a work of highly personal filmmaking, but as the story unfolds, this powerful film becomes an expansive reflection on family, loss, and the experience of being black in America. —Cara Cusumano
2021 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION - Part of the Juneteenth programming
2021 HOTDOCS FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION (CA Premiere)
URBAN WORLD 2021 OFFICIAL SELECTION (NYC)
DETROIT BLACK FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL SELECTION
VIFF 2021 WINNER - BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
DIRECTOR: Sol Guy
PRODUCER: Stine Moisen, Sol Guy
SCREENWRITER: Sol Guy, Matthew Cooke, Shoshana Guy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rafe Scobey-Thal
COMPOSER: Joel Shearer
EDITOR: Matthew Cooke
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Shoshana Guy, Wolfgang Hammer, Jane Rosenthal, Alastair Siddons, Seema Thakker
ADDITIONAL EDITORS: Autumn Dea, Wyatt Weymouth
CREATIVE PRODUCER: Matthew Cooke
KEY CAST: Travestine Guy
ON-SET GURU: Freye Parkhouse
CAST: Sol Guy, William Guy, Travestine Guy, Freye Parkhouse, Barbara Ogletree, Leora Gesser
Toward the end of his battle with kidney cancer, William Richard Guy filmed himself being interviewed over the span of six VHS tapes. The tapes were meant to serve as a record of his life for those he was leaving behind. He was born in the small town of Waterloo, Iowa, and soon left with his mother for bustling Kansas City. He got married at 18 and had two children. Soon after, he moved to Washington, D.C., and fought for civil rights, before heading north, where he had three more children in an idyllic enclave of rural Canada.
For twenty years, one of those children, Sol Guy, couldn’t bring himself to watch these recordings. Only in the process of creating his film The Death of My Two Fathers did Sol Guy finally confront his father’s tapes, and with this project, he continues the tradition, using the tapes as an entry point for recounting his father’s story—and his own—directly to his two teenage kids. It’s a work of highly personal filmmaking, but as the story unfolds, this powerful film becomes an expansive reflection on family, loss, and the experience of being black in America. —Cara Cusumano
2021 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION - Part of the Juneteenth programming
2021 HOTDOCS FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION (CA Premiere)
URBAN WORLD 2021 OFFICIAL SELECTION (NYC)
DETROIT BLACK FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL SELECTION
VIFF 2021 WINNER - BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
DIRECTOR: Sol Guy
PRODUCER: Stine Moisen, Sol Guy
SCREENWRITER: Sol Guy, Matthew Cooke, Shoshana Guy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rafe Scobey-Thal
COMPOSER: Joel Shearer
EDITOR: Matthew Cooke
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Shoshana Guy, Wolfgang Hammer, Jane Rosenthal, Alastair Siddons, Seema Thakker
ADDITIONAL EDITORS: Autumn Dea, Wyatt Weymouth
CREATIVE PRODUCER: Matthew Cooke
KEY CAST: Travestine Guy
ON-SET GURU: Freye Parkhouse
CAST: Sol Guy, William Guy, Travestine Guy, Freye Parkhouse, Barbara Ogletree, Leora Gesser