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.

Filmmaker: So how did this doc originate? Did Natalie reach out to Angela after viewing her TEDWomen talk? Had you known each other before?

Rae and Patton: Yes, Natalie reached out to Angela after seeing her powerful TEDWomen talk in 2015. (Angela had many filmmakers approach her to tell this story, but Natalie was the only woman.) She then traveled to Richmond, Virginia to meet in person and see if visions aligned enough to turn it into a documentary.

Once we met, we immediately connected so deeply around our passion for the imagination and wisdom of young girls. We had such a similar feeling with regards to approaching the story from the girls’ POV’s, and being a vessel into their worlds. Though at the time we had no idea the film would take over eight years to make!

Filmmaker: How exactly did you select your characters? Did any fathers and daughters have to bow out during production?

Rae and Patton: It was a pretty organic process. Once the families were signed up for the Date with Dad program, we started to meet with them to understand their stories and to see who was interested in being part of the film. We had about six or seven families that felt like a good fit.

As we got closer to the dance, however, a couple of the fathers were transferred to other facilities, which meant they could no longer participate. So by the time the dance actually happened we ended up with these four main families that naturally complemented each other. The girls ranged in age from five to 16, all with very different personalities, lived experiences, and ways their relationship with their father was affecting them.

Filmmaker: What were some of the greatest challenges when it came to actually navigating the prison bureaucracy? Did you have a backup plan in case you were barred from filming the dance?

Rae and Patton: We spent the first two years just preparing to make the film about the dance at the Richmond Justice Center, where it had taken place for 10 years. But by the third year, when we were all geared up for both the dance and filming, the program actually got cancelled! While frustrated and surprised that the new sheriff had put things on hold, we also realized we had no choice but to wait this out a bit.

About six months later, however, Angela got the call from Clinique Chapman at the DC Correctional Facility, asking to bring the program to the nation’s capital. Together we went and explained how also making a film could help spread the word about the process and impact of the program. It’s incredibly hard to get access to film in correctional facilities, but with Angela’s reputation of a decade of success the DOC agreed. Which left us with only two months to then raise the money for the months-long shoot! There was no backup plan other than we’d make it happen somehow.

Filmmaker: What was the collaborative process with all these various participants like? Did the girls and their moms get to weigh in on rough cuts? Have all the fathers even seen the final film?

Rae and Patton: Our in-depth collaboration with the girls was so inspiring from start to finish. From long conversations and just getting to know them, we collectively decided what types of things would make sense to capture. We even discussed their memories, dreams and nightmares  and how we could turn their feelings into scenes for an audience.

As they grew older we kept layering their stories. We showed rough cuts at various stages to get input. This past fall we did a screening in DC for all of the families and the fathers who are no longer incarcerated. We welcomed their feedback and made sure that they were comfortable with the way they were being represented onscreen. For the fathers who are still incarcerated we always planned to present it to them the month of the premiere so that they could have a premiere as well.

Filmmaker: Could you talk a bit about the impact campaign, which I’m guessing you might have developed in parallel with the film?

Rae and Patton: We have many great partners who came together to develop our impact campaign. But first and foremost, we’ve launched an education fund for the girls in the film because education is the key to challenging the effects of generational incarceration.

After asking all the fathers and daughters what they would most like to change about the system, the response was always the same: “To be able to touch.” This is a primal human need that the fathers and their daughters are being deprived of. Touch is love, and it’s the first language that children understand. Being cut off from that sense causes immense harm, and a disconnection from both love and self. It keeps the families broken. So we are really prioritizing developing our impact campaign around protecting children’s rights to have touch visits with their parents.