Aubrey hugs her father, Keith, in the documentary “Daughters.” Courtesy of Netflix

In 2012, activist Angela Patton delivered a TED Talk about organizing a father-daughter dance at a prison. Several filmmakers reached out to her about turning the story into a documentary, but none of them seemed to grasp its point. They kept asking whether she could get them access to the correctional facility. It was all about “the jail, the jail, the jail,” she said recently.

Patton, however, “wanted to make sure … the girls were always centered. That’s the priority, right?”

It was for her, as founder of the Richmond area’s Camp Diva Leadership Academy and CEO of the nonprofit Girls for a Change, two efforts to empower young Black girls. Things turned around when Patton heard from Natalie Rae, a filmmaker who started out directing music videos but who, in her own words, “was always really passionate about telling young women’s stories.” She had teamed up with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to spotlight female activists in countries such as India and Kenya. When a friend sent her the link to Patton’s TED Talk, “it really struck a chord,” she said.

Roughly eight years after they connected, Patton and Rae screened their documentary “Daughters” at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won a pair of audience awards. The film, in limited theatrical release and on Netflix, marks the debut feature of its co-directors. It explores the multigenerational trauma of incarceration by following four different families as they prepare for a father-daughter dance held in 2019. The youngest of the daughters, Aubrey, is just 5 years old.

By the time Patton and Rae agreed to work together, the girls mentioned in Patton’s TED Talk were in college, she said. She had continued the work at different Richmond jails in the intervening years, but a change in leadership at the Richmond City Justice Center threw a wrench in their plans to film there. When the program manager at a D.C. jail asked Patton about hosting a dance, the directors took it as a sign to shift their lens.

At the time, it didn’t strike Patton as especially significant that she would be telling this story of incarcerated fathers and their impacted daughters in the nation’s capital. But years later, on the cusp of the film’s release, she seemed to better understand its capacity as “a tool for change.”

“And a lot of times, when you want something to change, you go to Washington, D.C.,” she said.

“Daughters” depicts the city “from the girls’ perspective,” Rae added. The filmmakers allow viewers into their regular lives, accompanying one mother-daughter duo to a jubilant block party, filming another during a trip to a laundromat, and visiting the family home of the girl most vocal about missing her father’s presence. These children, largely cared for by their mothers, are bright and insightful. Despite their youth, their circumstances mean they see the world for what it is.

Some of the caretakers try to shield their daughters from those harsh realities. The mother of a girl named Ja’Ana, for instance, expresses her hesitation toward letting Ja’Ana visit her father in jail. He didn’t show up for his daughter when he wasn’t incarcerated, the mother says, so why should she risk him disappointing her now? And yet – Ja’Ana winds up attending the dance with everyone else.

“She was willing to give it a shot … for the benefit of her daughter,” Patton said. “We were able to show that it’s not always this pretty bow wrapped around you. That’s part of the process when you’re building relationships, whether you’re incarcerated or not. It can be challenging.”

While focused on the girls, “Daughters” is also concerned with the evolutions of those who care for them. The filmmakers do bring cameras into the jail, but only to depict the 12-week program designed to get the fathers ready for the dance. They are coached on how to regain self-confidence and strengthen their bonds with their daughters, to prepare them for their eventual releases.

Viewers never learn why any of the fathers are incarcerated. It is a notable omission, and one that speaks to the directors’ aligned visions. “Of course this system is completely racist and unjust, and there’s a lot of people that shouldn’t be there,” Rae said. The film doesn’t deny this claim, but chooses to set its gaze on the children affected by those inequities. “We have to address the unforgivable practices around visitation,” Patton said, referring to a number of restrictive policies outlined in the film – including one that bars the incarcerated parents from touching their children. “This system is disconnecting families.”

“Every child deserves love,” Rae added. “What their parents did is outside of the point.”

After hopping off the shuttle transporting them to the dance, some of the daughters approach their fathers apprehensively. Others leap into their arms. After hours of dancing and eating, the fathers hand flowers to their daughters that represent a promise to continue showing up for them, as they were coached to do in the 12-week program.

“Daughters” visits the girls a year after the dance, and then three years afterward. At this point, Rae sensed a deep change in a couple of the children, which signaled that it was time to begin the editing process, even if some of her subjects were still incarcerated. “Maybe it’s not about when all the dads come out,” she said. “Those are external things you could look at to mark your story’s ending, but it was more of an internal shift.”

Before the dance, 10-year-old Santana declares she never wants to become a parent. Her mother is overwhelmed, and she has lost faith in her father. When she sees him, she says, “I will tell him that I’m sick of seeing myself cry because the stuff that you do … it wasn’t my decision.” Three years later, Santana celebrates her 13th birthday with both parents present. Her father is “doing well,” she says to the camera. “He’s actually doing what we (were) talking about. I’m just happy.”

“Daughters” has received positive reviews from film critics. The Washington Post’s Michael O’Sullivan praised the filmmakers’ “sensitive, almost poetic touch” in his 3.5-star review. The Hollywood Reporter’s Daniel Fienberg remarked that “reservations aside, I still came away from ‘Daughters’ emotionally wrung out like a damp washcloth and infuriated at a system of punishment that too often fails everybody.”

Patton, who recommended viewers watch the documentary with “a box of tissues” beside them, wants those tears to inspire action. She and Rae were pleased when Netflix acquired the title out of Sundance, as its “huge platform” meant the story could reach far more people than they had previously anticipated.

“Black girls … have the power to control their own narrative and not only get a seat at the table but actually design the table, set the table and invite whoever they want to,” Patton said. “It’s powerful for people to see.”