New film explores fathers raising their kids 'against the odds'

theGRIO REPORT - Twenty-four million children in America are living in homes without their biological fathers present...

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

Twenty-four million children in America are living in homes without their biological fathers present.

A new documentary examines this startling statistic by featuring the stories of four fathers in New York City. The young dads encounter various struggles while raising their kids – criminal pasts, gangs, poverty, etc. The film, Daddy Don’t Go, is the work of producer and director Emily Abt, whose previous docs have been featured on PBS, MTV and Showtime.

It documents one year in the fathers’ lives.

This week, Abt began a Kickstarter campaign to help finance the completion of the documentary. One day into the funding period, backers have already pledged more than $20,000.

“I told myself I’m not gonna be no deadbeat father,” one of the fathers, Alex, says in the roughly 3-minute trailer video. “For me to be a deadbeat father, I gotta be dead and somebody gotta beat me up.”

The fundraising goal, $80,000, will go towards the film’s ongoing shooting costs as well as the editing process.

“Alex, Nelson, Omar and Roy shatter the deadbeat dad stereotype, redefining what it means to be a good father for all men,” Abt writes on the film’s Kickstarter page.

The trailer to the film is below:

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