Daughters, from directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae, is a documentary covering several years of a story about incarcerated fathers and a program in a Washington D.C. jail that let them be together with their daughters for a dance.
The documentary includes a 10 week group fatherhood counseling program in the prison. We also see conversations with the girls who would get to see the fathers who made it through the program.
The girls involved ranged in age from about 5 up to early teens. They talked openly about how they felt about their fathers being gone and how much they missed them. There was no mention of why the men were in jail. Several did talk about how long it had been since they’d seen and touched their dads. For some it had been years, for others a few months.
The men also opened up in the group counseling sessions. It was a learning experience for the men and helped them understand how important they were to their children.
The program set up a night for the fathers and daughters to meet, touch, hug, talk, share food, and yes, dance. The girls all had on pretty new dresses and the men were given suits and ties to wear.
Everything about the night of the dance was touching and heartbreaking. They had several hours together with no barriers between them. The emotions ran high among the fathers and the young girls. You’re going to need tissues, because you’ll be crying.
The documentary moves ahead several years. Ninety-five percent of the men who are released after participating in this program stay out of jail. That’s an amazing statistic! We saw some of those good outcome stories. But not every story had a happy ending. Some fathers were sentenced for many years. Some were moved to prisons in other states far from family.
Keeping the lines of communication open is not easy. Phone calls are timed and cost money.
The documentary doesn’t point out that most men incarcerated in this country are men of color. I’ve written about other films and TV series that address the issue, for example When They See Us, certain episodes of Orange is the New Black, and 13th. Those films, and many others, show what a racist racket American prison systems are.
What the documentary does instead is show real people, real love, and real need for a connection between fathers and daughters. It does an excellent job at that. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking all at the same time.
Netflix is streaming this film.
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this program is amazing. i was a public defender in DC, my hometown, for years. it is very hard to see these men meeting with the families through glass. and it is counter productive to future success and reduced recidivism to prevent meaningful contact btwn fathers and their children.
Do you know of similar programs have been adopted in other places?