Little Brother is a 10-year/10-chapterseries of short documentary films that give Black boys as young as nine years old the unique opportunity to have their voices heard on a topic society tends to rob them of: Love.
Little Brother. A conversation that will save a generation.
Filmmaker Nicole Franklin states: “As of this date, I have spent 14 years filming African American subjects. I have been known to film primarily women, but never too far from their side is the magnetic, passionate, estranged, complicated, tortured and, at other times, joyous relationship with men.
In 2009, I was in my tenth year of independent filmmaking, and I could not ignore exploring the men in our culture any more. This was prompted by questions from my audiences: What kind of men do the women you film share their lives with? Are their husbands, boyfriends or lovers emasculated in any way by their success? Do they feel they are fully supported at home in order to pursue their passion? Of course I had answers to these questions–from the women’s point of view. But what would their men, or any men in this case, have to say about their affection in return for these very special women? Dare I say it? What was not being discussed at length in my films nor any others at the time was the fully realized ability of African American men to love.
Developed in 2009, with principle photography in 2010, my company, EPIPHANY Inc., has—to date—produced four short documentaries as part of a 10-year/10-chapter series titled Little Brother. This interactive media project co-produced by J. Tiggett, may be found at www.LittleBrotherFilm.com. The project began as an experiment. The premise: if young Black men aged nine to thirteen, from ten different areas of the United States, were to express their thoughts on love in their own words, how might this nation change its perception of a large section of the population often seen as disadvantaged and menacing. Are they to be pitied or feared? Exalted or punished? Whatever the impression, Black boys in the United States are rarely described as merely human.
Filmmaker J. Tiggett: “It concerns me to think that in a few generations, the Black family as we know it may not exist because we couldn’t sustain ourselves, because others didn’t love us, because we didn’t love one another. These boys are essentially the heads of household of the next generation, and what they have to say about love may give us a clue as to how to preserve it.”
