'The Bastard Sings the Sweetest Song', using direct cinema style, introduces us to the Smith family in Georgetown, Guyana, where both Muscle, and his mother Mary, each struggle to fight the family demons of violence and alcoholism, bringing them into conflict with each other. Anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson (daughter of Margaret Mead) recently chose 'The Bastard Sings the Sweetest Song' as the film she would introduce with a talk about aging and poverty, two of the films’ themes, at the Anthropological Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.