IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

CC: When I first started interviewing my father, I knew that I had to ask why he had molested my sisters. But I also knew that my father possessed the power to derail the project by simply saying, "I don't wish to participate." He could opt out, not sign a release form and ask that the cameras stop rolling. So for years I'd show up with my camera and simply gather as much background material on my father as possible--his childhood, mother, military days, marriages and so on. I kept waiting for him to bring up the issue, but that never happened. 
Finally, I got a call from my sister saying that our father was in the hospital and he might not make it. I went to visit him with camera in hand, got permission from the hospital to film and realized that this may be my last chance to ask, "Why?" After five years of avoiding the question, I asked and was immediately liberated from the hold he had over me. I was 39 years old at the time, but it was the first time I truly felt like a man. I had always imagined this scene as being contentious, either in his response or my reaction to his response. The scene is crucial to the narrative arc of the film, but not in how I initially envisioned it playing out. In the hospital scene, you hear me ask the question and him start to explain as I slowly lower the volume on him. Some people during rough-cut screenings said to me, "I want to hear everything he had to say about why he did what he did." But for me the scene is more powerful not hearing him attempt to justify what he did--"...drugs... black man was under so much pressure back then...." I wanted the scene to unfold as I experienced it standing there in that hospital room; realizing that asking the question was more important than anything he had to say.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

CC: I never set out to make a film. When my sisters invited me to spend Thanksgiving 2001 with them in Kentucky, I decided to bring along a small camcorder. It was only after I arrived that I learned my father would also be there. This would be the first time I'd seen my father in 15 years. I'd always imagined that after all this time, I'd confront him for what he did to my sisters. But when he walked through the door, I watched my sisters, their kids and neighbors warmly greet this man, laugh at his pithy remarks and cater to his every need. It was absurd. Disturbing. And rather than confront him as I had always imagined, I was instead reduced to a terrified child, hiding behind the camcorder as my father's large torso filled the frame. 
When I returned to Boston, I felt like a coward, who failed to condemn my father and rally my sisters and neighbors behind this cause. But eventually, I came to understand that this is the story--the things my sisters, neighbors and I weren't talking about or confronting. From here I moved from wanting to indict my father and repair my sisters, to questioning why everyone was accommodating this man, who did these terrible things to my sisters. The way I'd always seen child molestation presented in the media was that you'd have the victim/survivor and the offender. Once the abuse was brought to light, the two would go their separate ways: the offender, banished to the margins of society, and the victim/survivor, set on a path of recovery or revenge. But never would the two voluntarily come back together and form a seemingly "normal" father-daughter relationship. I had to ask myself, "Why?"

IDA:  As you've screened Family Affair-whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms-how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

CC: Inevitably, I encounter folks on the festival circuit who reduce this project to an "incest" film. While that assessment may be unavoidable, I believe that Family Affair is a story about making accommodations for parents, who have betrayed us in order to satisfy an eternal longing for family. What's been most unexpected is the overwhelming number of people who come up to me after a screening or later write to say that although they weren't molested as a child, they completely identify with this story and then begin to open up. While I don't hold myself out to the world as an expert in this area of trauma and recovery, nor am I always prepared to respond, I am humbled by the fact that this film is giving people permission to talk about their own family crisis.

Interview courtesy of International Documentary Association
 

In the award-winning documentary Family Affair, first time filmmaker Chico Colvard offers an intensely personal examination of his own troubled family history.  At 10 years old, Colvard accidentally shot his older sister in the leg. This seemingly random act detonated a chain reaction that exposed his sisters’ sexual abuse and shattered his family. Thirty years later, Colvard ruptures the veils of secrecy and silence again, as he bravely visits his relatives and revisits the past. 

Premieres Thursday, March 1 at 9/8c only on OWN.   Watch the Family Affair Trailer!