Support? System Down Needs Your Support Now

Give these Dads a Voice!

A shocking new documentary, Support? System Down shows men’s lives ripped apart by the family court system. Many men are locked away in jail and unable to see their kids. Deprived of a basic human right –being a parent, their human rights as fathers are cast asunder. The very ties that bind them to family, to humanity, to society are all threatened when they can’t meet child support. These fathers may have the best of intentions to pay child support, but switched or changed jobs or got deployed overseas and got caught up in a system with limited opportunity to express how and why their circumstances changed. Unable to pay, they’re locked away. A simple sounding rhyme… and a questionable crime… in these uncertain financial times. 

There’s a pervasive mentality that views them as “dead beat dads”. Their pictures are hung up at the post office on the “most wanted lists”. The system itself is creating a modern day debtors prison as if our prisons aren’t crowded enough as it is. This is de-humanizing to fathers.

There’s a whole industry being created around the collection of child support. It’s to a state’s advantage to show a higher number of “dead beat fathers” on their dockets. They actually profit from it. But it’s a Catch 22. The more money that’s owed; the more incentive they have from the Federal government to collect it. Along the way abuses can occur all too easily at the fathers’ expense.

So many of these fathers as this documentary shows are not the bad guys they’re made out to be, far from it. They’re victims of a system that gives them little chance to be heard and even less recourse. With the economy in a downward spiral and fathers out of work and/or underemployed their ranks are likely to grow as more and more men get locked up for lack of child support. Limited financially by the very monetary circumstances that put them in jail in the first place – most don’t have legal representation or a chance of pleading their case for leniency in these tough economic times.  Yet, even criminals have a chance of a fair trial. But these guys are treated as criminals and denied their basic civil rights. 

And if being locked up isn’t hard enough, many of these fathers suffer from parent alienation on top of the woes of being in jail.  It’s why many can’t even see their kids when they’re in jail and afterwards, it only worsens their relationship with their children and themselves.  It’s hard to feel good about yourself and work and do the right thing, when you can’t even see your kids.  Parental suicide rates go up 5 Times for parents removed from their children.

These fathers have a basic right to be there for their kids and to be heard by the family court system. See the movie, Support ? System Down. Give these fathers a voice they so desperately need.  See All trailers here.

1) Buy the Sneak Peek DVD for the father’s in your life and the future fathers you might know.

2) Make a donation at the documentary's website. 

Help bring the plight of our fathers facing jail time to the public. Give these dads a chance by seeing, Support?  System Down.

Comments

[Darrick Scott-Farnsworth]

Dear Supporters,
From Mississippi to Kansas to Massachusetts to California and to Yes you
guessed Down Under Australia. We made this budget today! Thank You!
On top of that we have 2 more opportunities open up for festival submissions
that we will be submitting to. We will keep you posted as things develop.
I am honored and very happy to tell all of you that the goal and funds were
raised as of late afternoon yesterday and some this morning. We received
$1,000 dollars from the NCFM, www.NCFM.org and the Fathers 4 Justice F4J Los Angeles to complete the amount we needed today to make this happen and get the needful completed DVDs out to the festival (s) next week. We will be editing Monday evening. I am lost for words at all the support that came pouring in for us. Not just the funding just honest heart felt support from people that want to see this project come out.
Total Raised $2,895.00......................YOU ALL MADE IT
happen.................... now I will do my part. Thank You!!

Unfortunately, there is also the NEGATIVE ones that have just started
bashing me and questioning my intentions to this project and etc... All I
can say is that the last 4 years have been so difficult not only for me but
also for my family and friends who, even though believe in what I am doing
and support me, I know have a hard time because this is all I have tried to
do is get out to a trust worthy distribution that will play it.
At the bottom you will see a list of Special Thanks for the help we have
gotten. To all those that I will not name here its because... sad to
say.... I don't want you to be emailed, called, harassed or attacked for
helping me or this film. (crazy isn't it)

Beware Bogus documentary: I just wanted to address this and some other
things that came up.
The problem is REAL! The people are REAL! The film can be called a Full
Feature movie, Film, Docu feature, Movie, video, clips, or what ever else
you want to call it. It exists there is a DVD cover, there are trailers,
there are clips, there are tears there is laughter, there is animation,
there archive videos, judges, attorneys, woman and men, non-custodial and
custodial parents. If you want to know after 220 hours or so of footage, it
is at 72 minutes Total Run time which is (my understanding) industry
standard for a MOVIE to be shown theatrically which we have done and this
week we will be putting together the final touches to make as many festivals
including the Atlanta one (dates to be announced) and then looking forward
to the next of goal of qualifying for the Academy. (we have to try it)

I tried to answer below the best I can.
* He does not answer his emails
Sometimes emails do get lost into junk mail, I do my best to answer all the
emails if I can however most of the emails are new stories and cases that we
do hold to answer at a later date for the future.
* He does not disclose his contact info, or the name of the festival
My email is disclosed and to those people that have contacted me for the
last 4 years you should have it if you don't you can always go to
http://www.supportthemovie.com/contact and usually someone will get back to you within 48 hours or so. As per festivals we have submitted to dozens in the last 2 years those are behind us we look forward to this year. We disclose them unless we are accepted. Thank you!
* We considered renting a theatre in Seattle to show this, and were
willing to pay for it, but we needed either a DVD or a streaming preview of
the movie, before we put up our hard earned money, and he doesn't want to
play. He fell silent when we said we want to peek, before we pay.
Yes this is true, I really don't remember if it was Settle or which state.
We are contacted a lot about screeners and the ones we have done I showed up for, however, it could have fell at a bad time for us. Please NOTE and remember we have changed this film many times to get a MOVIE that will play and be able to show. We are glad many times because it just wasn't ready.
If you want to see our track record you can go to our website we have
screened a few times and the people that put up the funds were NOT
disappointed with the film there was a lot of sharing after and opened minds
("I never knew that was happening to people". If you want to see a Sneak
Peak I would be happy to send you one or you can see the trailers on our
website and so on line. At times if we were going to change something NO
copies were going to go out. The cost for the screeners are on our website.
It will cost some money. The film is worth it. I don't charge for my time or
anything but I like to be there to see things through and get feedback so
that's why we just don't send out DVDs until we get it qualified, to
festivals and then released. Thank you.
In many cases we only sent the copies to festivals or distributors. As we
are doing next week we keep trying.
* He is clearly not a businessman, does not conduct himself in a
business like manner, and if, indeed, he is a brilliant cinemetographer, and
documentaries, then he needs to get a volunteer business person and / or
promoter to work with him.
I'm not perfect just an upcoming filmmaker putting out a new film that
hopefully will make a change and reform so people don't die. Our TEAM,
however, has done a FANTASTIC job putting this film together and they are
professionals that is a FACT. People have volunteered their time since last
year for FREE until now that is a FACT.
The truth is I can't do this for a living. There is NO money doing this as
many of you know. If I was getting a salary I would have got this out a
long time ago, I'm just a guy who was doing some acting gigs, saw an
injustice ,wrote out an idea , sold everything I could (or had left) bought
a $5k camera and went outside the court house to film that injustice and
presto...... Support? System Down www.supportthemovie.com . I was in a
totally different arena before this and didn't have a clue except what was
happening to people and families was wrong. I never thought about marketing funds and have put not only ALL of my own money into this but also along with everyone we have come across al lot of hearts.
Volunteer and business persons..lol-----I'm sorry but everybody I have
brought aboard as a volunteer is fired up the first 2 weeks and then when
they ask for pay...oops....out the door.....thank you no thanks I have to
find a real job. Or I have been told a dozen times you will never get this
off the ground ,it will sit on shelves huh???...We keep moving and begging
and moving...stretching and screening where we can.... 1 step forward 3
steps back.......................... Please understand we are not Hollywood
nor have the budget to release like Hollywood! Thank you for understanding.

I have told him all of the above, and he did not reply to that either.
Yes sir, You probably have told me and many others have and believe me I
have tried my friend. I appreciate you and I thank you. When the movie does get to you I hope you like it. We are doing the best we can and we are glad we haven't put the final product out until this year because it really got
better and hits home( we feel anyway and some of others that have seen it)
God Bless.
Thanks again for believing in me. I will be working the next 5 days thank
you. Angelo

PLEASE NOTE: THE FULL VERSION OF THE DVD WILL BE AVAILABLE ***AFTER*** WE GET THIS FILM QUALIFIED AND DO THE FESTIVAL ROUTE FOR THE LAST TIME THIS YEAR!

WE WILL HAVE A FEW SCREENERS PLANNED FOR IT TO MEET THOSE GOALS AND RELEASE SOON AFTER ON DVD. FOR NOW THE "SNEAK PEAK" IS AVAILABLE ON OUR WEBSITE www.supportthemovie.com AND AMAZON for international customers. THANK YOU!

SPECIAL THANKS TO THESE ORGANIZATIONS AND TO ALL of those who supported and continue to support this project. THANK YOU!

For donating $1,000 to help the film meet the goal today!!
NCFM www.ncfm.org.

http://images.pimpmysearch.com/logo.php?gname=AXJ-International For their contribution
http://www.action4justice.com/
for their help and support.
American Coalition for Fathers and Children
For their contribution.
DaddyBlogger.com
The greatest joy in life is being a dad
http://www.daddy.typepad.com

For their contribution and support.

http://www.fathers-4-justice-losangeles.org/Home_Page.html

For their help and support.
http://www.nfja.org

For his help and support.
http://www.kids-right.org/

Shelly Barreras
www.ShellyBarreras.com for her generous contributions and continued support.

GET YOUR JUSTICE LIVE! Every Wednesday and Sunday Night Live at 8PM EST

Get Your Justice Live

http://spotlight.getyourjusticelive.com For helping us.

http://www.liberalartsradio.com
Liberal Arts Radio for the help and support.

SUPPORT? system down
email: [email protected]
website : www.supportthemovie.com

http://www.youtube.com/user/SupportTheMovie

http://www.myspace.com/supportthemovie
FaceBook: Supportthemovie
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[David Scott]

Thank you for this Article. Fathers’ right to be a meaningful part of their childrens’ lives, have been eroded to the point of non-existence. My research suggests that this is a phenomenon consistent throughout the industrialized nations. Children who are alienated from their fathers are more likely later in life to have emotional/behavioral problems, suffer from depression, drop out of school, fail in their jobs, and suffer from other social problems. I invite you to visit my site devoted to raising awareness on this growing problem: http://fathersprivilege.blogspot.com/