A Movie About The Things We Don't Talk About In The Black Community

“Exhibiting Forgiveness" unravels its director's estrangement from his father. It also explores a cultural cognitive dissonance.

Titus Kaphar has a hypothetical for me.

“Maybe you have a challenge with your father because he was a reasonable, kind, loving man — and all of a sudden he started supporting Trump and you watched him change,” the writer-director tells me while contemplating a central theme in his new film, “Exhibiting Forgiveness.” “What does that conversation around forgiveness look like?”

Kaphar does this a few times throughout our chat: pointing to an experience he and I might share, so I can better understand some of his most conflicting thoughts portrayed in his debut movie. He usually doesn’t wait for me to confirm whether a particular example is actually true for me. (In the case of the MAGA Black dad, it’s not, but I understood his point.)

It seems enough for Kaphar that I’m engaged in the crux of what he’s saying about knotty topics we don’t talk about often enough, particularly within the Black community. What spurred his comment about the Donald Trump-supporting father, in fact, was my question about creating a film centered on forgiveness during a deeply unforgiving moment in pop culture, when people are sometimes written off for committing even the slightest transgression.

That gets even more complicated when the person whose faults you can’t seem to get around is a member of your family. “Exhibiting Forgiveness” compels the audience to sit with that scenario. In it, a successful painter named Tarrell (André Holland) aims to help his loving, God-fearing mother, Joyce (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), move out of her home and closer to him and his family. Tarrell’s efforts are interrupted by the appearance of his estranged father, La’Ron (John Earl Jelks).