“I’m too old to put my fingers in my ears…” says series creator Giacomo Knox in the first episode of A Week With My Father, a new reality web series premiering this week.
The drama of the father-son relationship runs deep through fiction and that may be because the reality of the relationship is so hard for so many. A Week With My Father brings estranged fathers and sons together for a week to get to know each other and hopefully bring about forgiveness and the birth of a new relationship.
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“We wanted the show to remain family-oriented and non-exploitive, something that is not too common with reality television programming,” says Julie House, founder of Western Boy LLC, the series production company. Julie understands the exploitive nature of reality TV. She produced for Hallock Healey Entertainment on such shows as Scare Tactics and Who’s Your Daddy?. The show’s team which also included Director Andre Mayers, DP Jeff Reed, and Editor Anne Marie Maltes deliveries a quality production on par with good docu-reality TV.
I asked Giacomo what lead him to pursue this concept. He said,
“Drawing from my own experience, I saw an increase in the numbers of African-American men who didn’t know their fathers, and possibly were hurting emotionally from a lack of positive male role models. As I brought together the concept and started my research, I noticed that there has been an increase of fatherless homes in ALL racial backgrounds. I realized that I had a gift to give to the entire television audience – celebrating the father/son bond and fostering a sense of forgiveness and understanding.”
This series breaks new ground in reality programming on any platform. There’s never been a reality series focused on the father and son relationship.
We all come to an age where we realize that there are at least two sides to every story, that staying mad or sad gets you nowhere, and that we all can make mistakes and need forgiveness. Take your fingers out of your ears and tune into A Week With My Father. I have a feeling we’re all going to learn something.
