Finding hope behind bars: The story of ‘Fatherless No More’

When Kayla Johnson and Ashly Robinson started bringing cameras inside New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail, one of the first things they noticed was that their subjects often asked the filmmakers to see the footage—they wanted a glimpse of the tiny camera screens.

It took Johnson and Robinson a while to realize that these young men did not have any way to see themselves. Rikers does not have mirrors. Locked away from the world, they felt invisible.

No longer. Johnson and Robinson’s documentary Fatherless No More, which premiered on April 12 at the Florida Film Festival, is a moving and powerful portrait of young men who society tries to ignore but needs to understand. The 86-minute film follows Tim Johnson, a pastor and former NFL Super Bowl champion, as he lives in his RV behind the Rikers gates and establishes a program to help incarcerated young men find new life. Working alongside two corrections officers who coach a “Men of God” basketball team, Johnson breaks through walls built from trauma and poverty, revealing the film’s true stars: troubled young men who learn to express vulnerability, compassion, and love. The film builds upon themes Pastor Johnson explored in a book published last year, also called Fatherless No More, which connects readers to their heavenly Father.

“You see this Black man go into Rikers and it seems like he wants to be the hero and save the day, but it’s so not like that,” said Kayla Johnson, who is Pastor Johnson’s daughter and a filmmaker known for projects like the documentary series Fenom. “I think naturally he becomes somewhat of a father figure to them, but that’s not the point of the story. Fatherlessness can affect those who are not incarcerated, not in an earthly sense, but whether you have a good relationship with your dad, a bad one, or an indifferent one, fatherlessness can affect you if your dad defines your entire being. And so I hope this film sheds light on the effects of fatherlessness on the human condition rather than, ‘Oh, these poor Black kids didn’t grow up with a father.’ It’s so much more than that.

“It’s not your typical church story,” she continued. “Jesus does not look for the goody two shoes, who is ready and who has got it all together. He can find you wherever you’re at.”

Johnson met Robinson while both were working at ESPN in the 2010s. When Robinson – now director of content development and production at The Players Tribune – heard about Pastor Johnson’s mission, she told Kayla they needed to start filming. Starting in late 2023, the two friends and a third woman, cinematographer Victoria Martinez, spent about nine months inside the Rikers complex. Johnson and Robinson are co-directors of Fatherless No More, with Robinson as editor and director of photography.

“Kayla and I both feel like it was a divine calling,” Robinson said. “Throughout the whole process we felt like we were called to do this film. So to finish it, it felt like you kept your word and kept your promise to God and said yes when He called you to do so. And on top of that, we’ve established relationships with the guys in the film. We wanted to do them justice. They allowed us to be in their space and trusted us with things that were very vulnerable and new to them.”

The vulnerability stands out. The characters are all Black males in their teens and early 20s, with hard faces and harder Brooklyn accents, who have been conditioned to believe that showing emotion is a weakness. The cinematographers spend long, lingering moments on these faces, to the point where one young man, the fierce, hulking TJ, says that eye contact feels dangerous. But the unflinching nature of the camera work and the care that can be felt behind the lens turn the tension into understanding.

Near the start of the film, a kid named Cory describes his father letting him down, over and over. “I ain’t nothing,” Cory said. “I don’t matter.” The rest of the film corrects that misconception.

The Rikers Island jail is where people wait for trial and, if convicted, sentencing. The details of what put these young men inside Rikers and the years they face in far-flung prisons are slowly revealed throughout the film. That choice creates a viewer relationship with the characters based on their humanity, not their mistakes—a reminder of God’s infinite capacity to forgive.

The Johnson family is from the Orlando, Florida, area, and Orlando Magic guard Cole Anthony and gospel star CC Winans helped fund the film. Johnson and Robinson now have Fatherless No More on the festival circuit and are in negotiations with production companies and streaming platforms.

Johnson and Robinson want aspiring filmmakers not to be afraid to step out on faith.

“You may not have everything all together, but once you just start taking one step and putting one foot in front of the other, you get more and more answers as you go,” Johnson said. “We had nothing going into starting this film, and the fact that God provided all of these resources, there’s no other way this could have come together.

“Don’t allow fear to stop you.”