Series Spotlight: he-Motions

A man in his bed with a massive headache. Internally screaming for help and physically unable to say it out loud. That is the moment the idea for this film landed.

Melvin Cotton III created, produced, and co-directed he-Motions, a two-part documentary about the emotional lives of Black men. He shared the chair with Treston Mayo. The film started where the filmmaker did. “The inspiration for he-Motions honestly began with my own mental wellness journey,” Cotton says. “I was in one of the darkest seasons of my life, and what I realized was, I couldn’t truly talk to anyone about what I was feeling. I didn’t feel comfortable saying it out loud, but internally, I was screaming for help.”

Manufactured happiness

Ask a group of men what makes them happy, Cotton says, and listen for who the answer is actually about. “They’ll say things like, ‘I’m happy when my kids are good,’ or ‘I’m happy when my wife is okay,’ or ‘I’m happy when everybody around me is taken care of.’”

Cotton calls that pattern “manufactured happiness,” meaning happiness attached to external outcomes instead of internal wellness. he-Motions sits with a question most men have never been taught to ask themselves. “What do I need emotionally? What makes me feel whole? What makes me feel at peace?”

What the title says out loud

The title is a play on “emotions” that centers the part of the word men are not supposed to claim. “For so many men, we’re taught to hide emotion at a very young age. We hear things like ‘man up,’ ‘be strong,’ or ‘don’t cry,’ and over time we learn how to survive Emotionless instead of actually processing what we feel.”

The tagline is the thesis. “My Vulnerability Is Not Weakness.” The film’s argument follows from there. Silence is what got passed down, but silence is not strength. “Sometimes real strength looks like therapy. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like crying. Sometimes it looks like saying, ‘I’m not okay.’”

History as context, not a lecture

The film connects slavery, Jim Crow, generational pain, and what Black men carry today. Cotton wanted that context without losing the people on screen. “It was important for us to acknowledge history as context, not to stay stuck in the past, but to better understand the ‘why’ behind some of the stigmas surrounding mental wellness, vulnerability, and therapy within the Black community today.”

To keep the film from sliding into a textbook, the cast speaks from lived experience as much as research. Marcus Brown, PJ Charles, Mike Davis, Isaac Floyd, and Sophia Rayam carry the conversations forward. “These aren’t actors reading lines or people speaking from theory alone. These are real people sharing real emotions, real trauma, real struggles, and real moments of healing.”

The conversation that stayed

Cotton names PJ Charles’s segment on fatherhood as the one that will not leave him. PJ talked about parenting his sons less from authority and more from real connection. Cotton is a father too. The shift was practical. “Sometimes I’ll be driving with my son and intentionally start random conversations about absolutely nothing, just because I want to be present with him and build that connection now while he’s young.”

The deeper hope is for who his son becomes. “The kind where he randomly calls and says, ‘Hey Dad, you want to grab lunch?’ or ‘Come over and watch the game.’ Not out of obligation, but because there’s a real connection there.”

What to know before you press play

“In this film, you will be seen, you will be heard, and you will be validated,” Cotton says. “A lot of people are carrying emotions, trauma, pressure, anxiety, disappointments, and silent battles that nobody knows about. And sometimes the hardest part isn’t even the pain itself, it’s feeling like nobody understands what you’re carrying. This film was created to let people know they are not alone.”

Documentary

---

Streaming now on Relay.