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As Oscar documentary branch voters mark their shortlist ballots, one of the features they’re considering is the award-winning Netflix film Daughters, a cinematic experience that has deeply touched audiences since its debut at Sundance.
The film directed by Angela Patton and Natalie Rae tells the story of a daddy-daughter dance where incarcerated men in the Washington, DC area get the all too rare chance to interact with their daughters in a loving and healing moment.
“It was the idea of a 12-year-old girl who wanted to connect with her father,” Rae told us at Sundance. “It’s just a very powerful story about family connection.”
One of the young daughters who participated in the film, Aubrey Smith, came to Sundance for the world premiere. “When I saw the documentary, and I looked at the dance, I realized how much it really meant to me that I got to touch my father and see him because now I don’t really see him often since he’s far away,” she said. “The fact that I got to dance with him, it’s just a memory I’m going to keep forever.”
Co-director Patton is the founder of Camp Diva Leadership Academy and CEO of Girls For a Change. Through her activism she learned of the profound need of girls like Aubrey to stay emotionally and physically connected to their fathers serving prison sentences.
“The girls and their families shared with us specifically that girls and dads, they need to touch each other,” Patton told us at the recent International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, where she and fellow director Rae came to support the film. “While serving time, what does it look like to still keep connection, still be able to parent from the inside out?”
Amsterdam was the latest stop on a world tour that has taken Daughters to Hot Docs in Toronto, the Melbourne International Film Festival in Australia, Sheffield DocFest in the U.K., and many festivals in the U.S., including DC/DOX and the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival in Massachusetts. The reception for the film at the latter festival particularly moved Patton.
“The response that I received from the audience was really touching for me because prior to that there have been more majority white audiences [for the film] — and happy that it has impacted them too. It is a film that should impact everyone, right? Because it’s a love story,” Patton said. “But when you tell Black stories, a lot of times they are stereotyped and it’s not really our lived truth and we are like, who told that story? And a line of women and men lined up [at the festival] to just say, ‘Thank you for that and thank you for telling my story.’ They really connected to every girl, and they wanted just to say that they were full of gratitude, that it was told in a very beautiful and humanizing way,”
In October, the filmmakers brought Daughters to the inaugural San Quentin Film Festival in California, the first event of its kind held behind the walls of a maximum-security rehabilitation center.
“It was amazing,” Rae recalls. “That was one of the most powerful days in this whole 10-year experience that I’ve been on with Angela. I sat in the middle of the audience and a gentleman on my right who hadn’t seen his daughter in 30 years and a gentleman on my left [who hadn’t seen his daughter in] eight years, and they both just let themselves cry. They talked to me and were like, ‘Wow, this is so intense,’ and just hugged and thanked us… That was one of the most powerful moments — my heart was shaking the whole screening.”
The documentary won the Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance and is nominated for three awards at the upcoming Cinema Eye Honors, including Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Feature Filmmaking, and Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film. The film has attracted prominent supporters, among them actress Kerry Washington and philanthropist Jessica Seinfeld, who joined the project as executive producers.
“Jessica Seinfeld has been extremely amazing,” Patton noted at IDFA. “And, of course, with her Good+ Foundation, she’s also very aware of movement work herself.”
Emmy winner Washington came to Sundance to help unveil the film; her work for Daughters and the cause behind it has taken multiple forms.
“She did more than stamp her name on it, I would say that! And did more than just come to the premiere at Sundance,” Patton commented. “Her support of the girls, the education fund that we set up with them, and we really love working with her team, specifically Maggie [Kretzmer] with Simpson Street [Washington’s production company], where Kerry already has set aside a team of individuals that are going to do more than make films, but make sure that they have an impact arm to them and that we have continuous support. When I say continuous support, I mean weekly meetings, making sure that they’re opening up doors for the girls, the organization and the policy change that we know needs to happen around [prison] visitation practices and really checking in on a regular basis. Also providing new opportunities for girls who may be interested in film, girls who may be interested in social activism and just being able to really give them that support.”
In Amsterdam, Rae told us what it’s been like to travel intensively with the film that has emerged as a strong Oscar contender.
“It’s just such a ride… The waves are big,” she said. “Selling the film was exciting and then you’re giving away your baby, so that’s complex. And then we’re doing a Netflix edit, but they were great partners. That was a whole other phase of creative work on the film while we’re doing festivals. What I’m enjoying now the most is that we’re just celebrating the film.. It’s such a film that we love sharing with audiences and talking in spaces and communing.”
Rae added, “More than ever, I think this film is really important and it’s been a really emotional few weeks. I’m just trying to lean into it being a really special time.”
