Daddy-daughter dances celebrate the relationship between a father and daughter. A documentary film released today on Netflix shows what that celebration looks like in a prison.
The documentary film "Daughters" follows four girls and their incarcerated fathers as they prepare for a special daddy-daughter dance in a Washington, D.C. prison. The film explores the ways in which families are affected by incarceration.
Filmmaker Natalie Rae co-directed the film with Angela Patton, CEO of Girls for a Change and founder of Camp Diva, a leadership academy for Black girls.
Patton said it was a 12-year old girl at Camp Diva that came up with the idea for the dance. Patton worked with the sheriff and others to make it happen.
“Natalie understood that I still had something that the film needed and that was the story, you know, the writing, the ability to have the community already trust me,” Patton said.
At its Sundance Film Festival premiere — where it won two awards including Festival Favorite — Patton said she turned down dozens of filmmakers who wanted to take on the story after they watched her 2012 TEDtalk about the program. She wanted the right person to tell the story.
“It wasn’t going to be a jail story. It wasn't going to be another disappointment Black story. It was going to be their story,” Patton said.
Patton said her and Rae’s goals aligned. They knew the film needed to be told from the perspective of the daughters and Rae understood Patton would protect the families through the process.
“Just knowing that I could tell the story so deeply, but working with Angela would go even deeper … and doing something unconventional … that was really exciting for us,” Rae said.
“I was hoping that Natalie and I could be an example or model of what it means to partner with Black people and brown people in communities that want to tell stories,” Patton said.
The film takes viewers into the girls' homes and into the prison where fathers participated in an intensive 12-week therapy course before attending the dance.
Throughout the film, audiences see how the girls cope with being separated from their fathers and the complicated emotions they experience over several years — before, during, and after the daddy-daughter dance.
Patton said when the families watched the film, the daughters saw how much they’d grown since the start of the project eight years ago.
“Some even wanted to apologize for who they were, but it allowed me to bring in the values of my organization and say, ‘There's no need to be sorry about what you were feeling. You were in a position to amplify your voice and you made us pay attention to that, and so that other five year old girl is now understanding that someone sees her,” Patton said.
Patton said the film is like reading an entry in a journal that allows the families to see how far they’ve come.
“Now they see themselves as activists in the community and not victims in the community,” Patton said.
'Daughters' is now streaming on Netflix.
