“There Was No Backup Plan Other Than We’d Make It Happen Somehow”: Natalie Rae and Angela Patton on Their Sundance-Debuting Daughters

Filmed over a remarkable eight years, Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s Sundance-premiering Daughters is an on-the-ground (and behind the bars) look at the preparations — physical, mental and above all emotional — leading up to the DC-jail-based Daddy Daughter Dance, the culmination of a fatherhood program for the incarcerated. Following Aubrey, Santana, Raziah, and Ja’Ana — four “at-promise” girls ranging from tiny to teenage — and the respective dads who are desperate to bond with them (and are serving sentences that likewise range in years) the doc is every bit as inspiring as one would expect from a co-director (Patton) who is also the CEO of a nonprofit called Girls For A Change. But also heartbreaking, infuriating, and downright revelatory in its characters’ trajectories. As vérité as life itself. Prior to the film’s (January 22nd) US Documentary Competition debut Filmmaker reached out to Patton, who is also a speaker and author (and TEDWomen talker), and Rae, a women’s rights advocate and Cannes Young Lions nominee (twice), to find out how they joined forces for this unconventional nonfiction project.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.