How dance brought girls and their imprisoned fathers back together again

An award-winning Netflix documentary tracks an inspirational US programme that reunites men in jail with their daughters – and 95 per cent of participants, once they are released, do not reoffend. Lydia Spencer-Elliott talks to the filmmakers behind ‘Daughters’ about what this could mean for America

A group of girls in Washington, DC, are ready for prom. Hair is perfectly blown out and braided. Outfits are a blur of lace, sequin and tulle. And, on the other side of a series of locked doors at a capital correctional facility, are their dates: their fathers, many of whom they’ve not seen since the day they went to prison.

This is a scene from Daughters, a gut-punch of a Netflix documentary that follows four girls and their imprisoned fathers as they prepare for a daddy-daughter dance. At the Sundance Film Festival in January, the film won two audience awards, and is widely tipped for an Oscar nomination in 2025. “It’s a refreshing story about Black girls and their resilience,” says Angela Patton, the film’s co-director.

Patton runs Camp Diva Leadership Academy in Richmond, Virginia, a six week summer camp for Black girls designed to build sisterhood and self-esteem, along with a nonprofit called Girls for a Change. Her Date with Dad programme began in 2008, with girls and their fathers invited to attend an evening of food, dancing, comedy and activities to help them bond. The events are designed to look like any other prom-type affair: there is music, there are party dresses, plenty of unchoreographed dance moves. But, early on, it became clear that those with fathers behind bars felt left out. So some of the girls wrote to a state sheriff and asked to host one of the parties in jail. He said yes. “These girls just needed a way to invite their fathers into their lives on their own terms,” Patton says.

Filmmaker Natalie Rae found out about Patton’s work in 2012 and immediately approached her to make a documentary. “I thought it was one of the most inspiring, powerful, examples of what could happen when young women lead and we listen to their voices,” Rae says. “They’re fearless and they know how to use forgiveness, which is one of the hardest things as adults we tend to avoid.”

Patton and Rae began working on Daughters together in 2016. It took them three years to find the right girls for the film, before following them in preparation for their daddy-daughter dance in 2019, then catching up with them a year later in 2020 and then once again in 2022.

So many daughters want a more emotional relationship with their dad. This film is a reminder for fathers that if you’re not there in person or you don’t have a job, it’s okay. Just be there somehow

Natalie Rae, filmmaker

Today, sat on a many-cushioned sofa of a London hotel suite, there’s no mistaking that Patton and Rae mean business. They radiate a steely determination, something necessary to bring a story like Daughters to the fore – and make the notoriously fickle film industry pay attention. Rae, as all good documentary makers do, mostly observes, leaning back quietly in a sharp leather jacket. Patton, from behind her black, cat-eye reading glasses, doesn’t break her gaze from my face as she lays out just how important the film is for thousands of families with fathers in prison.

Each girl followed in Daughters handles her father’s incarceration differently. Five-year-old Aubrey is top of her class in school, relentlessly optimistic and full of love for her dad, Keith: “Everything I wanted to be, she is,” her father says with admiration. Ten-year-old Santana, however, is furious with her father Mark for leaving her: “I’m sick of crying because of the things you do,” she tells him. Ja’Ana, 11, doesn’t remember her father Frank’s face because her mother bans her from visiting him in jail. Meanwhile, Raziah, 15, struggles with her mental health and is terrified at the idea that her father Alonzo won’t see her graduate high school. “It doesn’t feel like home when he’s not here,” she says.

In order to attend the dance with their daughters, inmates must first complete a 10-week fatherhood coaching course. Many dads are worried about their hair, their dodgy dance moves and their lack of suit and tie – all problems Patton duly solves for them. But in one session captured in the film, she takes a different tack: hammering home just how important the dance is to their daughters. “They want to be with you,” she passionately reminds them. “They want to count on you.”

Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, the women behind ‘Daughters’ (Getty Images)

In the film, many inmates admit they initially intended to use the programme as a means to receive another visit in jail. Due to cost cutting, hundreds of US prisons have ceased in-person visiting hours and replaced face-to-face “touch visits” with phone and video calls, both of which you have to pay for. This means that for many poorer families, communication has been drastically reduced. Patton warns that the negative impact of digital-only visits are “terrifying”, particularly for Black girls with Black fathers. “[There’s] harm on their mental health, their education,” she tells me. “The children are feeling guilty. There’s a lot of shaming that goes into it… It can be devastating for the entire family. Everybody is figuring out how to stay strong.”

Many of Daughters’ most emotional scenes occur when dads are reunited with their children. Raziah sobs as she nestles into her father’s arms, as he strokes her hair to soothe her. Keith looks steadily into Aubrey’s eyes and touches her tiny chin with his thumb. Ja’Ana’s dad struggles to recognise her at all. “We all agreed that we wouldn’t talk to the families that day,” says Rae. “That was their day. Their moment.”

The crimes that led to the inmates’ imprisonments are never revealed on-screen in Daughters, Patton and Rae deciding that if it “wasn’t important to the girls”, then it wasn’t important to them as filmmakers. It means we see the men as people first, fathers second – and criminals rarely, if at all. Specificities are sometimes powerfully absent. One inmate, named Leonard, is told at one point that his daughter hasn’t turned up to dance, and we never find out why. “He went through a moment of reflection like, ‘I have to do better,’” Patton recalls. “And he is. He’s out now. Reconnected with his daughter, had more children, got married, and started his own nonprofit. He took ownership. That’s what I love.”

Daughters and dads spend the day of their dance taking photos on disposable cameras, teasing one another on whose muscles are bigger, doing arts and crafts, and, of course, dancing. “I had too much fun, I’m going to cry myself to sleep,” Aubrey tells Keith at the farewell. “I don’t want to let you go.”

Santana, 10, and her father Mark, who had not stayed out of prison for longer than six months prior to the dance (Netflix)

Before the fathers return to their cells, they hand their daughters corsages and make sincere promises to do better by them. While “Before I Go” by Frankie Beverly and Maze plays, Aubrey tells her dad through tears: “I’ll always be here for you… It’s not ‘goodbye’, it’s ‘see you later’.” He smiles at her premature wisdom before admitting to the camera later just how much the farewell actually hurt. He will stay in prison for another 10 years minimum.

Even Rae’s crew dissolved into sobs at these scenes. “Our cinematographer [Michael “Cambio” Fernandez] looked at us at one point and said: ‘I don’t know if anything will be in focus, the iris is filled up with tears,’” recalls Rae. “We were all crying in his arms. It was a moment that overwhelmed everyone in the space. It was the most powerful event I’ve ever experienced… and it was in focus. Thank God.”

Ninety-five per cent of imprisoned fathers who take part in Patton’s Date with Dad programme never return to jail once they are freed. Such is the project’s success that other prisons, including Miami’s Federal Detention Center and the Omaha Correctional Center, have started their own father-daughter dances. Meanwhile, Camp Diva continues to host their annual daddy-daughter dance at the Richmond City Jail where the project began 16 years ago.

The programme’s reputation for good precedes it: Patton and Rae never had to look for a location for Daughters – because the Washington, DC, prison where it eventually took place rang them at the right time, asking if they’d bring the project east. “They understood that a collaboration would be great and it would look good for them,” Patton says of convincing the facility to allow filming inside the jail. “So, they were like, ‘OK, let’s get it.’ I don’t think any of us really knew where it would go, but we all knew that it needed to be something that was shared.”

Aubrey, five, reunites with her dad Keith at the Date with Dad dance (Netflix)

When Patton and Rae catch up with Aubrey, Santana, Raziah and Ja’Ana in the final scenes of Daughters, some are elated to have their fathers home, while others are disappointed. One father is still in prison, others are struggling to connect with their daughters on the outside. Both Rae and Patton point out, though, that although their documentary is about imprisoned men, all fathers could learn something from the film.

“So many daughters want a more emotional relationship with their dad,” reflects Rae. “This film is a reminder for fathers that if you’re not there in person or you don’t have a job, it’s okay. Just be there [somehow]. Pick up the phone. Give us a hug. Ask us how our day was. We need you in so many ways. And maybe you don’t realise just how special you are and what you can offer.”

‘Daughters’ is streaming on Netflix