Daughters review – tender, wrenching film about a dance date for girls and their jailed dads

I found myself choking up barely a minute into this heartfelt documentary about a daddy-daughter dance scheme for the girls of incarcerated fathers in Washington DC, such is the emotional wallop of this terrific, Sundance prize-winning film.

Co-directed with a supreme assurance that falls just on the right side of slickness by music video director Natalie Rae and Angela Patton – activist and founder of the Date With Dad weekend – Daughters feels like the fortuitously alchemic combination of two very different but complementary voices. Patton’s formidable communication skills, previously demonstrated in a widely viewed Ted Talk , drive a film that has a kinship with, and a similarly wrenching impact to that of the Folsom prison group therapy documentary, The Work . And Rae’s visual flair brings a child’s-eye lyricism to the film that evokes the heady enchantment of Beasts of the Southern Wild . It’s elegantly edited too, by Troy Lewis and Adelina Bichis (whose work I previously admired on the similarly poetic Nascondino ).

But the main assets are the individuals we follow as they prepare for this rare opportunity for in-person contact (since 2014, many US penitentiaries ceased to allow face-to-face visits with inmates). Five-year-old Aubrey sparkles as she boasts about her mastery of multiplication tables; the walls of her home are full of school certificates that she has earned to make her father, Keith, proud of her. Aged 10, Santana is a brewing storm of anger at her dad, Mark. And Raziah, 15, is so affected by Alonzo’s incarceration that she struggles with depression. Finally, Ja’Ana has never met Frank, the father who has been cut out of her life by his prison sentence.

Meanwhile, the men work through sessions with a “father life coach” to prepare them for the switchback emotional journey ahead. The dance is the picture’s climax, a glimpse of joy and optimism. But the film’s coda, shot three years later, shows the cost of prolonged separation. Hope is a spark that can be easily extinguished.

• In select cinemas and on Netflix