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Review: Daughters

— by BEV QUESTAD —

This tender film’s catapult to the 2025 Oscar Best Documentary Short List was not unexpected. “Duaghters” is an outstandingly poignant love story that reaches deep into our essential bond with our parents. When the bond is compromised, we instinctively want it repaired. The raw honesty of the documentary makes us care.

Co-director Angela Patton says, “It’s a universal love story meant to resonate with all of us. Our shared experiences within families, regardless of our backgrounds, create a bridge of connection between us” (Spicer, Sundance).

Patton and her co-director, Natalie Rae, allow the audience to get to know both the daughters and their fathers, men incarcerated in a DC prison. The film’s crew got to know them, too. Emotional responses to both the inmates and girls led the cinematographer to report having difficulty filming through his tears.

One of those emotional moments was when the girls, aged 5to 15, bravely filed down a long hallway to share their father’s time in prison for one afternoon. Dressed in fancy clothes to meet their dads who were dressed in borrowed suits, ties, belts, and shoes, some met their dads for the first time.

The Father-Daughter Dance in prison program was founded by Angela Patton and a group of girls she was mentoring in Girls for Change. The program includes ten weeks of group counseling for the dads before and after the event. It also involves counseling for the girls.

The audience gets to know 4 of the daughters: Aubrey Smith, 5, Santana Stewart, 10, Ja’Ana Crudup, 11, and Raziah Lewis, 15. We first get to know Aubrey, who matter-of-factly announces she is the smartest girl in her class – and that she’s got the certificates to prove it. We’re not sure if obviously resentful Santana will go to the dance. Ja’Ana, who was born when her mother was 14 and her dad was 16, walks alone in the dark doing her own dance she explains as reflecting “Body – Space – Energy -Time.” Raziah, the oldest, laments the important events her father has missed and will continue to miss.

We wonder if all the daughters, some who echo their mother’s deep resentments against their fathers, will come. We wonder how their fathers will react to their first physical contact since incarceration. We also wonder just how this “dance” will proceed and what it will be like when the participants must depart.

But most of all, we wonder how this program might affect the dads in the long run. We will find out.

Angela Patton, CEO of Girls for Change, became co-director of this film because of her 2012 TEDxWomen Talk on her community service work with African-American girls. They had been holding an annual Father-Daughter Dance. One year, one girl announced she was sad because she couldn’t go because her father was in prison. Another girl popped up with the idea of holding the dance where he was incarcerated. A letter was written to someone in charge and all the girls signed it. Their wish was granted and the first prison dance was held.

Patton received about 30 offers for film rights to her project. But it was Natalie Rae who recognized the need to involve Patton, who knew the girls, their families, and the prisoners, as co-director. A partnership was born and “Daughters” ended up winning both the Documentary Audience Award and the Festival Favorite Award at Sundance in 2024.

This is a tender movie of love and hope, excellently filmed and edited by a remarkable team of filmmakers.

10/10



Credits

Directors: Angela Patton and Natalie Rae
Writer: Zoe Pratt
Editors: Adelina Bichis and Troy Lewis
Featuring: Chad Morris, Angela Patton, and the girls: Aubrey Smith, Santana Stewart, Ja’Ana Crudup, Raziah Lewis, and their moms and dads
Cinematographer: Michael Fernandez
Executive Producers: 23, including Angela Patton and Kerry Washington
Release: August 14, 2024
Official Website: https://www.daughtersdocumentary.com/
Where to see: Netflix

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