Monday, February 19th
3:00 – 4:30pm
CARNEGIE Institution for Science
$8 IN ADVANCE HERE OR AT THE DOOR
Screens with the documentary short The Summer at Ten
Daddy
Directed by John Gallen & Alex Faoro
Lead Cast: Curtis Malone, DerMarr Johnson, Nolan Smith
USA / 2018 / 30mins
Daddy tells the story of youth basketball coach and drug trafficker Curtis Malone. In 1993 Curtis founded the DC Assault, an AAU basketball team whose mission was to keep inner city boys off the streets by helping them earn college scholarships. Over the next two decades he built the Assault into a national powerhouse. The program’s resume included one thousand alumni, a hundred Division I student athletes, and several NBA players. Despite the many on-court achievements, to Curtis the team was about more than basketball. The players and their parents became his family. He provided them with food, clothing, and housing when they had nowhere else to turn. He even raised future NBA players DerMarr Johnson, Nolan Smith, and Michael Beasley under his own roof.
But on August 9th 2013, Curtis’s double life caught up with him. Following a yearlong investigation, the DEA raided his home and uncovered large quantities of cocaine and heroin as well as an unregistered handgun. Law enforcement identified his operation as one of the largest drug trafficking conspiracies on the East Coast. Ironically, in the drug world Curtis was known as “Daddy.” Our documentary examines Curtis Malone’s life from his childhood to his arrest. It challenges audiences to decide if Curtis is a calculating criminal who betrayed his community or a caring mentor who supported underprivileged children. Ultimately, it raises the question whether we as people are defined by our wrongdoings, or rather the sum of our actions. In addition to Curtis, the film includes interviews with the NBA players he raised, the DEA agents who investigated him, and the U.S. Attorney who prosecuted him.
