A group of incarcerated fathers are warned in the documentary “Daughters” that they’re about to go on “emotional rollercoasters.” A truer prediction has never been uttered.
In the film, directed by Natalie Rae and Angela Patton, the imprisoned fathers at a Washington, D.C., correctional facility, are given a rare gift: a few hours to spend with their daughters, who range in age from 5 to late teens. For one afternoon, they can be together to dance, hug and laugh.
For some of the girls, the program, called the Daddy Daughter Dance, will be the first time they’ve ever touched their father. Others haven’t seen their dad in years. The trend in U.S. prisons has been toward video calls and away from in-person “touch” visits. Even “in-person” visits are often through plexiglass and a phone.
The unspoken question that runs through “Daughters,” which debuts Wednesday on Netflix, is: Should it be this seldom that incarcerated men have real human interaction with their children? In this heartache of a documentary, the most plaintive plea is a basic one. Whatever else they are, one of the incarcerated men says, “We’re still fathers.”
“Daughters,” a prize-winner at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, first turns its attention to some of the young girls as they prepare for the afternoon. Aubrey, a chatty, immediately loveable 5-year-old, says, “When he says he loves me, I’m gonna say I love him more.” Aubrey’s father, Keith, will be in prison for another seven years, a time period that even a 5-year-old as bright as Aubrey simply can’t conceive. She’s learning to count.
Others have more complicated feelings before the dance. Santana, 10, vows not to shed a tear when she goes. “The only reason he ain’t here is he wants to keep doing bad stuff,” she says. Her father, Mark, didn’t hug his daughter until she was a year old. For Ja’Ana, 11, seeing her father is even rarer. Her mother didn’t want her to see her father behind bars. “I don’t remember nothin’ about my father, nothin’ at all," she says.
On the day of the dance, the fathers, all wearing suits and a flower on their lapel, are sitting in a long row of seats when their daughters arrive. The filmmakers capture the moment almost like a fairy tale, with lots of light and little sound besides some music, a few shouts of “Daddy!” and a little muffled crying.
Inside a gym, the fathers and daughters play and dance. Some have a ball. For others, it’s clear that the gulf between them can’t be bridged in a day. When it’s time for the daughters to go home and the fathers to return to their cells, the parting is inevitably crushing. Before the girls depart, the fathers sign pledges to remain their life. In the 12 years of the program, 95% of participating fathers don’t return to jail.
We've had the good fortune of two exquisitely tender films this summer about the lives of incarcerated people and the paths they might take to redemption in “Daughters” and the recently released true-tale-inspired drama “Sing Sing.” In “Daughters,” the dialogue around the dance is cause for reflection, also, on the imprisoned men’s own upbringing and cycles of parental absence that can extend across generations.
Time is the fundamental metric of prison life, which makes a documentary like “Daughters,” filmed over years, uniquely, maybe even monstrously capable of capturing its passing. As much as “Daughters” can be an emotional rollercoaster, there’s no preparing for the film’s painful years-later epilogue. Aubrey is now 8. She hasn’t seen her dad since the dance. When she's finally permitted to visit her father, she doesn’t recognize him through the plexiglass. On the ride home, Aubrey no longer looks like the bundle of optimism she was at 5. Make no mistake. This is tragedy, in very real time.
“Daughters,” a Netflix release, is rated PG-13 for some thematic elements and language. Running time: 107 minutes. Three stars out of four.
This image released by Netflix shows Aubrey Smith in a scene from "Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Donte Brooks, Allan James, Leonard Smith, and Jeffrey Saunders in a scene from "Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows Aubrey Smith in a scene from "Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
This image released by Netflix shows a scene from "Daughters." (Netflix via AP)
KARTALKAYA, Turkey (AP) — As flames tore through a 12-story hotel at a popular ski resort in northwestern Turkey, friends Esra Karakisa and Halime Cetin stood helpless, paralyzed by the horror unfolding before them: people leaning out of smoke-filled rooms pleading for help and others making the harrowing decision to leap out.
The fire at the Grand Kartal Hotel in Kartalya, in the Koroglu mountains in Bolu province, on Tuesday left at least 76 people dead and 51 injured. It came near the start of a two-week winter break for schools when hotels in the region are filled to capacity.
“There was no one around. They were calling for firefighters. They were breaking the windows. Some could no longer stand the smoke and flames, and they jumped,” Cetin, an employee at a hotel adjacent to the Grand Kartal, told The Associated Press.
Her colleague, Karakisa said: “It was awful. We were terrified. People were screaming. The cries of children especially affected us. We wanted to help but there was nothing we could do. I couldn’t look it was so terrifying.”
Authorities have assigned six prosecutors to investigate the cause of the fire, which appeared to have started at the restaurant section on the fourth floor of of the wooden-clad hotel and spread quickly through to the upper floors.
At least nine people have been detained for questioning, including the hotel owner.
Flags at government buildings and Turkish diplomatic missions abroad were lowered to half-staff as the nation shocked by the disaster observed a day of mourning for the victims.
Only 45 of the 76 bodies have been identified so far, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said late Tuesday.
One of the injured was in serious condition, while 29 others were treated and released, the Health Ministry said.
The hotel had 238 registered guests, according to Yerlikaya. The fire was reported at 3:27 a.m. and the fire department began to respond at 4:15 a.m., he told reporters.
Officials and witnesses said the rescue efforts were hampered by the fact that part of the 161-room hotel is on the side of a cliff.
According to Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, the hotel underwent inspections in 2021 and 2024, and “no negative situation regarding fire competence” was reported by the fire department.
Karakisa said she eventually brought clothes and water for the survivors while others rushed to bring mattresses for people to jump onto or propped up ladders against the wall to help them escape.
Among those who placed mattresses was Baris Salgur, a cleaner in a nearby hotel.
“They were saying, ‘Please help, we’re burning!' They were saying, ‘Call the fire department,' we were trying to calm them down, but there was nothing we could do, we couldn’t get in either,” Salgur, 19, said. " It was very high, we couldn’t extend a rope or anything of course. We were trying to do the best we could.”
“People jumped from a great height, I couldn’t look. There were two women at the top floor. The flames had literally entered the room. They couldn’t stand it and jumped,” he said.
Salgur described seeing a man on the top floors holding a baby and shouting for a mattress he could throw his baby on.
"We told him to be a little calmer. He waited, then the fire department came and took them (out), but unfortunately the baby had died from smoke inhalation,” he said.
Associated Press writers Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, and Robert Badendieck in Istanbul contributed to this report.
Tightened bed sheets hang from a window of a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A Turkish flag flag flies at half staff outside a hotel where a fire broke out at the Kartalkaya ski resort in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Firefighters and emergency teams work on the aftermath of a fire that broke out at a hotel in the ski resort of Kartalkaya, located in Bolu province, northwest Turkey, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in a hotel at a ski resort of Kartalkaya, located in Bolu province, in northwest Turkey, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (Enes Ozkan/IHA via AP)