METALLICA Frontman To Discuss 'Absent' Movie At California Screening

METALLICA guitarist/vocalist James Hetfield will join filmmaker Justin Hunt at the San Rafael California Film Institute in San Rafael, California on Thursday, March 3 in presenting and discussing the award-winning documentary "Absent", exploring the worldwide crisis of absent and disengaged fathers and the negative impact that the "father wound" makes on society. Weaving interviews with participants who speak from observation and personal experience, the film includes on-camera testimony from author John Eldredge, world-champion boxer Johnny Tapia, fitness model Robin Decker and Hetfield. "The father wound is so deep and so all-pervasive in so many parts of the world that its healing could well be the most radical social reform conceivable," says Father Richard Rohr, and this film makes a strong case that this issue is central to the human condition. This special screening will be followed by a question-and-answer session featuring Hetfield and Hunt.

According to Rockville Magazine, "this topic is of interest to Hetfield since his own father abandoned his family around the age of 13. The METALLICA frontman was interviewed for the film, sharing his personal struggles of dealing with father abandonment issues and how he strives to be a positive father for his three children."

"My family fell apart," he said in a clip from the film. "I had feelings of abandonment."

According to The Daily Times, the candid and emotional interview shows a rare side of Hetfield. With a closer look at his lyrics, according to Hunt, there is the pain from the absence of Hetfield's father, Virgil.

Hunt was granted access to those lyrics as well as the use of six METALLICA songs within the movie. He was also invited back to METALLICA headquarters in San Francisco, where he recorded a voice-over of Hetfield reading song lyrics.

A trailer for the film can be viewed below.

For more information, go to this location.

(Thanks: Rockville Magazine)