Sundance 2024 Exclusive: Natalie Rae, Angela Patton & Chad Morris talk Daughters doc

Making its World Premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival was Daughters, directed by filmmaker Natalie Rae and social change advocate Angela Patton. Four young girls prepare for a special Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers, as part of a unique fatherhood program in a Washington, D.C. jail.

A moving portrait of empathy and forgiveness, DAUGHTERS traces an eight-year documentary journey in following Aubrey, Santana, Raziah, and Ja’Ana as they prepare for a momentous Daddy Daughter Dance with their incarcerated fathers. Speaking openly about their aspirations, dreams, and the emotional toll of their fathers' absence, compounded by the constraints of virtual visits, these girls reveal a profound wisdom and resilience beyond their years. As they navigate heartbreak, anger, and uncertainty, they seize a precious opportunity to forge connections. DAUGHTERS sheds light on the complexities of familial bonds strained by the unforgiving barriers of the criminal justice system and emphasizes that the foundation of community healing lies within the family unit.

Blackfilmandtv.com's Wilson Morales talks to filmmakers Natalie Rae, Angela Patton and fatherhood coach Chad Morris about the doc Daughters

Coming into this, how did you determine who would be on screen and what stories to tell from the individuals you gathered?

Natalie Rae: It was actually a really organic process. Not every family is really wanting to do it, so there's a variance of who's interested and who wants to be part of a documentary and who's less comfortable. I really resonated with Keith right out of the gates. He just was so connected to Aubrey and almost cried in the first conversation that I had with him, so I was very keen to meet Aubrey and she exceeded all my expectations as well of what he said. And so yeah, we had six that we were working with at the beginning and a couple of the fathers actually couldn't eventually attend the dance and so then that went down to four and they were just so beautifully balanced each other out in terms of different ages, going through really different experiences, different types of relationships with their fathers and different ways that it was impacting them. So we felt like the collective of the four girls was gonna be the strongest way to move forward with them together.

For you Chad and Angela, you guys have been involved, deeply inside working with these individuals and their families. How do you work with them knowing you're continuing to go on and you've been doing this for so many years? Do you walk away knowing the next cycle? You know, do you continue to work with these individuals afterwards?

Angela Patton: Well, I would say what you all were able to view in 2019, we did have a gap because COVID approached us, but the way that our program works is that we continue to provide mental health services and direct services through our program with Girls for a Change to provide support for the girls. The goal is for us to advance their opportunities. And so not only are we making sure that socially and emotionally they're together, we also wanna make sure that our girls are equipped and they're skilled and they're ready to be excellent students in school, continue their education, also have great opportunities to travel. So we're making sure that our girls do not allow their father's decisions to define who they are and who they have the potential to become. And so that hard work continues in Girls for a Change. And I'll let Chad speak about the fathers.

Chad Morris: And so what you see in the film is an ongoing continuum. You see snapshots of that as it goes on, because with these dads, that 12 week journey is just a small portion in their lifetime of being a parent. Before they were incarcerated, they were men and their fathers. And so to those little girls, they're just daddy. And every day they wake up, the brand new parent of a brand new child. So it's really necessary. We've been fortunate enough to keep contact with those gentlemen and continue to work with the ones that are out, continue to work with them and encourage them when they need things to the point that some of them call me and check on me to make sure I'm okay. And that's a relationship we form. But in the work that we've been doing, as Angela shared, this has been going on for almost 15 years. And so the families that we've worked with, a lot of them end up becoming ambassadors for the same work from different cohorts.

So there are hundreds of dads and girls out there over the course of that 15 year period who don't all have the same level of participation, but anytime they want to come back into the circle, the door is always open for them. And for those who need support, we continue to work with them intently.

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