Directors ANGELA PATTON, NATALIE RAE (US 2024) 102 min

Prepare for sweetness personified, as well as wisdom and love, as several young girls and their incarcerated fathers get ready for the very special occasion of a Daddy Daughter Dance. Winner of the 2024 Sundance Festival Favorite and US Documentary Audience Awards, this intimate eight-year documentary journey brings us into a unique program at a Washington, D.C., jail, where men work for 12 weeks with a gentle but skillfully prodding coach on the important matters of fatherhood. With daughters taking the lead and mothers remaining in the background, intimate scenes of conversation and pre-event preparation invite us in to share the anticipation of their long-awaited date. While the girls and young women have their hair done and dress to the nines, their fathers don pressed shirts and freshly shined shoes, busying themselves with neckties like giddy schoolboys dressing for the prom. It’s a poignant testament to the harm of incarceration, but also the healing potential of family bonds.