One of the bright-eyed young girls who form the core of Netflix’s new documentary film Daughters is old enough to understand, as she explains to the camera, that it takes the Earth a full year to orbit around the sun — and that, once it’s done so, she’ll be able to see her father again.
This heartbreaking yet inspirational Netflix doc from filmmaker Natalie Rae, which already has a 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes ahead of its Aug. 14 debut on the streamer, traces what’s amounted to a multi-year journey involving Girls for a Change CEO Angela Patton. Her nonprofit focuses on empowering and uplifting Black girls, and Daughters follows her development of “Date with Dad” — a program that fosters the bond between fathers and daughters separated by the prison system.
Fathers who take part in the program participate in therapy sessions leading up to a daddy-daughter dance, for which the men wear semiformal attire instead of their state-issued prison garb in what amounts to a sweet and tender union with their girls.
“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,” Netflix explains about Daughters, which premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award in Documentary Competition.
“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.”
The movie is the byproduct of a 2012 TEDWomen talk about the “Date with Dad” program that went viral, after which Rae approached Patton about doing a documentary about the program. Co-directed by Rae and Patton, Daughters also counts Kerry Washington among its executive producers — and it’s easily one of Netflix’s most moving and unforgettable documentary releases of the year.
