It’s been an eventful Sundance Film Festival for directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton as their Daughters earned major distinction with not only the Festival Favorite Award, voted on by event attendees, but also the Audience Award in the U.S. Documentary competition. Furthermore, after Sundance, Daughters was acquired by Netflix, ensuring that the feature--and the grass-roots movement it chronicles--will receive a global audience, hopefully sparking like-minded programs on a wider scale.
More than a decade ago, Patton--CEO of the nonprofit Girls For a Change and founder of Camp Diva Leadership Academy--helped bring about a progressive initiative in Richmond, Va, creating a father-daughter dance for girls whose dads are incarcerated. The original idea came from a 12-year-old girl and Patton heeded her call. Momentum built for the program, in part spurred on by Patton’s presentation at TEDWomen in 2012. That session generated extensive online viewing--and overtures from filmmakers interested in telling the story. Patton resisted, though, as she didn’t feel the fit was right--until she crossed paths with Rae.
A collaborative partnership was born as Rae helped Patton add filmmaking to her communications toolkit for bringing about positive change, helping give voice to the underrepresented, and youngsters the opportunity to reunite with their fathers. Rae and Patton shared an eight-year journey to bring the film to fruition, started by Rae doing what Patton described as necessary due diligence, delving into all aspects of the program and connecting with its participants--fueled by the desire to do justice to the story, the lives that have been impacted, and hopefully realizing the promise of down the line positively affecting the lives of others. The dances and what leads up to them are part of a healing process, helping to understand how and why familial bonds are broken--and what’s needed to start repairing them. Daughters shines a light on intimate moments within the girls’ homes, and provides a taste of the 12-week educational/therapy sessions that fathers have to undergo in preparation for--and in order to be allowed to participate in--the dance.
Patton was particularly drawn to Rae’s orientation towards the project--not so much treating it as a prison reform story but rather tapping into the wisdom and intuition of the young girls, talking to them and eliciting their thoughts and feelings on the complicated relationships they have within their families.
It took three years to gain the approval to film the dance program. A facility in Washington, D.C., asked to bring the father-daughter program there, and the documentary was seen all the more valuable as a means to help potentially inspire facilities across the U.S. to adopt the progressive initiative.
Rae said a priority was making sure they fashioned the right approach to covering the dances. As storytellers they strove for authenticity, not getting in the way of the experiences of the girls and their fathers. Rae noted that cinematographer Michael “Cambio” Fernandez played an instrumental role, becoming friends with many of the fathers, relating to them and thus bringing an extra level of “trust and energy” to the proceedings.
Rae added that she benefited greatly from teaming with Patton. “Angela had done so many of these dances” and, noted Rae, deeply understood their dynamics and humanity. Rae said Patton was invaluable in formulating an approach that didn’t call so much for directing or talking but rather “letting families do their thing” and being on hand to capture that.
Patton shared, “Natalie introduced me to the world of editing,” citing her strong eye and creativity. “She allowed me to be the voice of Black stories, understanding my connection to the stories and wanting to make sure there were no stereotypes. I’ve done 15 of these dances. There’s no need to re-create it or direct it. You let it happen organically. You will then feel it too...Everything naturally flows.”
Patton, in making her directorial debut, described Rae as someone she could “lean on and grow with.” The collaborative partnership made the process easier, said Patton, noting that “telling Black stories is a very sensitive topic--even when Blacks are telling the story. There’s so much trauma and history...We tend to be very protective over our truth, especially when sharing our trauma.” That made the film’s reception at Sundance all the more gratifying for Patton who saw first hand how people responded and how the story resonated with them.
Rae was gratified by the immediate support she and Patton received throughout the process--especially at the outset from production houses as soon as they heard about the Daughters story. At the time, Rae was repped for commercials and branded content by Epoch Films in the U.S., Object & Animal in the U.K., and OPC in Canada. All three companies committed to the film, producing it along with Park Pictures, a shop which maintains a feature division that has brought assorted films to Sundance over the years. (Object & Animal has since expanded its spot representation for Rae from the U.K. to now also encompass the U.S. market, succeeding Epoch. OPC continues to handle her in Canada.) Additionally, Kerry Washington was among the executive producers on Daughters.
Noting that the production of Daughters overlapped with the pandemic for a stretch, Rae observed that both events “reminded me of the unbelievable amount that humans are able to give to each other in the face of really hard circumstances. For Daughters, I felt this from the girls, from Angela and the fathers. Even though they were incarcerated, the fathers gave their support. It was really inspiring.”
Patton shared, “I never dreamed when I had this experience with the girls that it would come this far. Now beyond the girls originally in the program, the film can help so many more lives.”
Rae observed that her short-form filmmaking experience informed Daughters on several levels. She has a background in music and dance, and made an initial directorial mark with music videos and then commercials. “All this was a big core for understanding my process, how my background in dance and music translated into cinema, a visual lyrical approach. This story [Daughters] combined all the things I care about and love--a story centered on women, spiritual dance and movement, a musically driven narrative. The short-form world has enabled me to hone my craft. I’ve been able to tell many women’s stories--in Iran, Canada, India, Kenya, South Africa. I have traveled so much, been able to develop the start of a voice, and then break out and hit my stride in a full film.”
Rae is an alum of SHOOT’s 2016 New Directors showcase, has had work featured at the AICP Awards as well as the Cannes Young Directors Awards.
J.M. Harper
For J.M. (Jason) Harper, the third time around having a film at Sundance turned out to be the charm in terms of his actually being able to attend the festival. Up until this year, Harper’s relationship with Sundance had been defined by the pandemic. In 2021, Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma, a nonfiction short he edited for the directing team rubberband. (from production house SMUGGLER) made the festival cut but COVID turned the event into a digital festival. Don’t Go Tellin’ Your Momma went on to win the Sundance Short Film Jury Award for Non-Fiction. The next year the Harper-edited documentary Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy was selected for Sundance but a week before the fest was slated to get underway, the in-person event was canceled due to concern over the Omnicron variant of the COVID-19 virus. Thus Harper again didn’t set foot in Park City,
Finally this year, Harper’s feature directorial debut, As We Speak, was chosen as one of just 10 films in the U.S. feature documentary competition. And Harper got to come to Park City to fully experience Sundance. As We Speak enlists Bronx rap artist Kemba to explore music history as well as the growing weaponization of rap lyrics in the U.S. criminal justice system and abroad--revealing how law enforcement has quietly used artistic creation as evidence in criminal cases for decades, leading to charges against and the incarceration of artists.
Park Pictures Features played an integral role in not only bringing the project about--producing it with Strike Anywhere and District 33--but also in securing Harper to direct it. District 33's Sam Widdoes and Pete Cambor originally brought a book--"Rap on Trial: Race, Lyrics and Guilt in America" by Erik Nielsen and Andrea Dennis--to Sam Bisbee, Park Pictures Features' partner/producer. Bisbee then reached out to Harper with the book. But Harper wasn’t interested at the time in taking on another music project, having come off of Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy. Thankfully Bisbee persisted--and Harper agreed to read the book, in part because of his deep respect for Bisbee. Upon reading the foreword by Killer Mike and then the first chapter, Harper shared, “I knew immediately I had to do it.”
Bisbee gravitated to Harper knowing his talent as well as already being connected to him via sister shop Park Pictures, which represents Harper in the U.S. and U.K. for commercials and branded content. Harper in fact joined Park Pictures to not only open up opportunities in the spotmaking/advertising arena but also for the chance to get involved in high caliber feature films given the track record of Park EPs Sam Bisbee, Jacqueline Kelman Bisbee and director/cinematographer Lance Acord. “I wanted to follow in the footsteps of a lot of the directors there who wound up doing independent films,” said Harper, citing such examples over the years as Jon Watts and Jake Schreier, filmmakers he’s long respected.
Harper’s commercialmaking experience via Park Pictures also served him in good stead for his first feature. On those assignments, he got to compare notes with the likes of cinematographers like Hoyte van Hoytema (currently an Oscar nominee for Oppenheimer) and Yorick Le Saux (who shot Little Women for director Greta Gerwig). “I found myself working with DPs who like Lance [Acord] had been making some of the greatest films of our time. I began to learn how other directors work in long form. This made that world feel closer.”
This in part helped alleviate any anxiety or fear about making a feature. Being able to work with world-class artists, including cinematographers, served in a sense like film school for Harper who feels fully supported at Park Pictures. As an editor prior to diversifying into directing, and then at Park Pictures in commercialmaking, Harper developed and honed his craft and has consciously endeavored to create art. In that vein, he’s carried a quote with him from Ed Catmull, co-founder and former president of Pixar, which he related as, “Craft is what you’re expected to know. Art is an unexpected use of the craft.”
As for the art he aspired to craft in As We Speak, Harper recalled being in development on the film for about a year without a lot of interest being drummed up on the studio side--until rapper Young Thug was arrested, charged with multiple felonies, having to deal with evidence against him and co-defendants which included his song lyrics. That trial in Georgia is taking place now. Harper encountered a number of potential backers who wanted the film to center on Young Thug. But Harper knew the story was much larger, noting that there are hundreds of cases where rap lyrics have been used against defendants. Harper opted to pursue that history--not to focus on Young Thug but rather “the bottom half of the iceberg” not so readily visible but incredibly dangerous.
Towards that end for As We Speak, Harper--even though he has extensive experience holding the camera as a documentarian--still marveled at “the access that total strangers gave us to their lives once they trusted we were making this documentary from the artists’ point of view. Anyone could hear what the prosecutors, the district attorney and music executive would say. But often those without the megaphone were the artists themselves.”
Harper continued, “I’ve reached this point in my career where I’m still surprised, delighted, shocked and honored” by the fact that people are willing to talk to us “about some of the darkest and brightest aspects of their lives. It’s still stunning for me.”
Harper’s commercialmaking exploits also figured in his being able to land the participation of Kemba in As We Speak. “I had made a commercial for Meta with Kemba--a mini-bio of his life,” said Harper. “I remember telling him there was something else we have to do at some point.”
A year later that something else emerged when Harper called Kemba on the phone. “I was hoping he would say yes [to As We Speak],” related Harper. “I barely finished the first sentence and he did.”
As We Speak will be shown theatrically in Manhattan on Feb. 20 as part of DOC NYC Selects screening series that serves as an extension of DOC NYC’s annual fall festival. A week later, As We Speak will debut in the U.S. on Paramount+.
Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Directing duo Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck recently connected with RSA Films for their first career commercialmaking representation. The move came on the heels of their feature, Freaky Tales, being selected as part of the Sundance Premieres lineup. Freaky Tales, which Boden and Fleck also wrote, is a genre mashup set in 1987 Oakland, Fleck’s hometown, with an ensemble cast that includes Pedro Pascal, Normani Kordel and Ben Mendelsohn. The filmmakers describe it as a personal fever dream fantasy incorporating all of Fleck’s youthful obsessions from sports, movies and music.
Freaky Tales continued a Sundance run for Boden and Fleck which started 20 years ago when their short film, Gowanus, Brooklyn, made the festival cut, and then spawned the feature Half Nelson which premiered at Sundance in 2006. Half Nelson featured then rising star Ryan Gosling. The role earned Gosling an Academy Award nomination for his performance as a high school history teacher with a drug problem who forges an unlikely friendship with one of his students. Boden and Fleck also directed the acclaimed indie film Sugar, which was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize in 2008.
Reflecting on Sundance and how it and they have evolved, Biden and Fleck recalled their first go-around at the festival. “We were kids. We heard about Soderbergh, Linklater, all our sort of film idols there. It was the festival’s 20th anniversary.”
Fast forward to this year’s 40th Sundance--and both Linklater and Soderbergh again had movies at the fest.
Boden shared, “The first time [at Sundance] felt special in a different way. It felt like we were sneaking into this special place where people were lining up to see movies. We were meeting all these other young filmmakers.”
She continued, “Now coming back was special and nostalgic because Sundance really made our career for us. That was the first place that we met our agent; the first place where we met Michelle Satter of the Sundance Institute who invited us to workshop our script Half Nelson, our first feature. It’s where we screened our first feature. It’s been a very nurturing place for our careers.”
At the same time, there’s been an overriding constant to Sundance over the years for Boden and Fleck--the exhilaration of going to a huge darkened theater where film lovers gather to watch your movie. That shared experience, affirmed Boden, is “so appreciated and so loved”--even more so today given the prevalence of streaming.
Especially sweet for Fleck is that the shared experience this time around was for a movie, Freaky Tales, that came from his childhood--from hip hop to punk rock to sports, based on growing up in Oakland, Calif., in the 1980s. Fleck smiled that the film is a mix of “real and hallucinated memories,” covering 20-plus years over the course of a four-chapter movie.
The four interconnected tales span teen punks defending their turf against Nazi skinheads; a rap duo battling for hip-hop immortality; a weary henchman getting a shot at redemption; and an NBC All-Star settling the score.
Other than Fleck being the driving inspiration for the idea, Freaky Tales was approached by the directorial duo just like their other films--no division of labor, with both working together on varied aspects. Fleck noted, however, that Boden is more proactive in postproduction than he is, given her editing chops. In fact, Boden edited their first four films.
Boden and Fleck began working with other editors, most notably in TV with Mrs. America which had them collaborating with cutters such as Emily Greene, Todd Downing, and Robert Komatsu. The latter wound up editing Freaky Tales. Boden noted that she would be happy to work with any of those editors on a feature. On Freaky Tales, Boden said that Komatsu was “meticulous” and very much attuned to “what we intended for the footage without us having to tell him.” She added that working with an editor “better than me” and having a special rapport with him freed her up. Boden observed that she benefited from seeing “someone else’s perspective on the edit,” which in turn enabled her “to put my mind toward other things.”
The esprit de corps among cast and crew on the film, noted Boden, was inspiring. Everyone was “passionately invested in telling this story” which was shot in the town that the film was all about. “So often people are chasing tax credits these days. This is a love letter to the East Bay and we made it a priority to shoot there. The crew felt the love and busted their ass to make it happen.”
Fleck’s passion helped fuel that sense of shared purpose. He feels blessed to be “able to make this movie that I’ve been possessed with since I was a kid. I can relax now...No film I’m going to make is going to feel as personal as this.”
Boden too valued the experience which departed from what had been the norm for the directorial team. She described the experience as “just letting go of any filmmaking inhibitions, being bold, not holding back and going all out with every stylistic, cinematic, character and music choice that we were making. This was a new thing for us. We have done a lot of pretty subtle character dramas and this is not that. It was a really fun exploration, a totally different muscle of filmmaking. We explore a lot of very different ideas over the course of the four chapters of the film. In each and every one of them, we pushed the boundaries...We really learned a lot.”
Fleck noted that he and Boden’s aforementioned joining with RSA to foray into commercialmaking reflects their desire to experience another way to exercise storytelling muscles. He and Boden are eager to take on the challenge of telling stories in 30 seconds or a minute, with the support of a shop as heralded as RSA. And perhaps they will find that the short-form experience in turn may positively inform their longer form endeavors.
Boden and Fleck’s filmography also includes It’s Kind of a Funny Story and Mississippi Grind before they co-wrote and directed Captain Marvel (2019), which grossed over $1 billion at the box office worldwide.
Alexandria Stapleton
It’s apropos that an accomplished documentarian be able chronicle first-hand how the Sundance Film Festival has evolved--in one key respect, for the better. Alexandria (Alex) Stapleton returned to Sundance this year with God Save Texas: The Price of Oil, part of the God Save Texas trilogy that was selected for the fest’s Episodic section, which was created specifically for bold stories told in multiple episodes. The other two installments are God Save Texas: Hometown Prison directed by Richard Linklater, and God Save Texas: La Frontera directed by Iliana Sosa.
Stapleton first came to Sundance in 2011, debuting her documentary Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel. It was the first film that Stapleton, a Black, female documentarian, ever directed. She felt so lucky to get into Sundance, recalling that there weren’t a lot of women directors there back then--much less, any Black, female directors. “Ava DuVernay was there and it’s been incredible to see her meteoric rise after--and how much she’s done for women of color behind the camera,” said Stapleton.
Fast forward to 2024 and Stapleton finds it gratifying to see how much Sundance has changed in terms of diversity. “There are so many more women, voices from underrepresented communities represented at Sundance.” This was evident, she said, on varied fronts--from parties to panel discussions and screenings. “There were so many different types of people,” affirmed Stapleton, engendering a feeling within her of being in solidarity with my fellow documentary filmmakers.”
Stapleton’s The Price of Oil--the second leg of the God Saves Texas trilogy--gives voice to those who have been outright ignored or forgotten. The Price of Oil delves into how the divisive but vital energy industry has impacted the lives of many Houston residents, specifically Black and disenfranchised communities which include the documentary filmmaker’s family, who arrived in Texas in the 1830s as slaves and have stayed in the state for nearly 200 years.
Oscar-winning documentary director and producer Alex Gibney took the initiative for God Save Texas, reaching out to Stapleton in 2019. Gibney wanted to turn Lawrence (Larry) Wright’s book, “God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State," into a series. Gibney and Wright were interested in different perspectives on aspects of Texas that hadn’t been extensively chronicled before. Stapleton recollected brainstorming with Wright, and their discussion gravitated to the Black community. Stapleton said they realized that “my community doesn’t have a relationship with oil in the stereotypical way that you would think most Texas would have.” The authenticity of Stapleton’s family story underscored that Black Texans represented a rich, largely unexplored storytelling vein, touching upon such issues as people’s health being compromised by living in close proximity to oil refineries.
Stapleton thus faced a unique storytelling challenge for the first time. “The biggest hurdle,” she assessed, “was turning the camera on myself and my family. I had never done that before. It was quite uncomfortable to be honest. But Larry was a big champion for all of this--myself, Richard [Linklater] and Iliana [Sosa]. It was a completely different muscle for me to exercise--to allow myself and my family to be vulnerable; to be a director and to be in the documentary.”
Complicating matters was that Stapleton’s episode had to be shot during the height of the COVID pandemic. In fact, Stapleton lost three family members during the making of the film--two of them to COVID. “It was a moving experience. I moved back home to work on this. Never had I done something so personal. It became more than a film for me. It became having to look at this piece of history that was a part of me and my family over many years. My family now knows we will always be a part of our state’s history. And especially with Black families, that’s important. It hopefully inspires more filmmakers to do the same--to turn the lens on their families and get these stories out.”
The Price of Oil helps to shed light on big-picture issues relative to disenfranchised communities. Stapleton hopes it helps to promote an understanding of the sacrifices that are made--the price that is paid to supply the country and parts of the world with energy. Brown and Black communities receive much of the negative impact from having oil and gas refining nearby. But these hard-hit communities do not significantly share in the enormous profits being generated by oil and gas.
Stapleton’s work on God Save Texas served as a major influence on her decision to launch a production company, House of Nonfiction, in 2021, with a mission to tell stories that not only entertain viewers but help shift their perspective and inspire positive change. The Price of Oil brought Stapleton back to reside in Texas, now with a keen interest in mining stories from down South--Texas stories, stories form the Gulf. A major North Star for House of Nonfiction is to find more filmmakers willing and able to bring more of these and other stories from underrepresented communities to the fore.
Sharing insights into these communities and their history takes on even more importance as there’s a concerted movement afoot to erase major parts of history from the school curriculum. This is especially true of Black history, including slavery. “I live in a state where the governor and the political party in charge are totally fine and okay with banning books--books that my friends have written,” said Stapleton who’s scared to see this happening in states such as Texas and Florida. Just as chilling is seeing people becoming numb to the idea. That’s why the God Save Texas trilogy is invaluable--preserving and sharing history. Linklater’s episode, “Hometown Prison,” takes us to his Huntsville, Texas, known as “Prison City,” sitting at the heart of an expansive prison industrial complex. Yet, for many residents, these prisons exist in another realm, disconnected from their lives. Linklater revisits his hometown to explore its diverse inhabitants, painting a vibrant portrait that encapsulates the essence of Texas, while looking at the impact of capital punishment. And Sosa’s episode, La Frontera, dives into immigration and the U.S./Mexico border. Sosa examines how “nepantla,” an embrace of in-betweenness, characterizes relations to both her Mexican heritage and her hometown of El Paso, Texas. This exploration reveals how the city’s humanity and unique hybridity helped serve as a catalyst for unity, nurturing healing in the aftermath of a devastating mass shooting in 2019.
God Save Texas is slated to debut on HBO later this month. The Price of Oil adds to a body of work for Stapleton which spans diverse topics including sports, music, pop culture, and social justice. She is set to soon debut Paramount+’s How Music Got Free, a music-meets-technology docuseries based on the eponymous book, produced with LeBron James’ SpringHill and rap icon Eminem. Also in the offing for Stapleton is a limited docuseries for HBO that shines new light on one of the most prominent racial justice cases of the 1980s, as well as a four-part series on women in hip-hop.
Most recently, Stapleton received a Critics Choice Award nomination for Best Sports Documentary for Prime Video’s Reggie which chronicles baseball superstar Reggie Jackson as he contemplates his legacy as a groundbreaking Black athlete. Stapleton’s credits additionally include Hello Privilege. It’s Me, Chelsea, which follows comedian Chelsea Handler as she reexamines the concept of white privilege and its effect on American culture; the GLAAD and Gotham Award-nominated FX series Pride, which looks at the American LGBTQ+ Civil Rights movement dating back to the 1950s (Stapleton served as its showrunner and EP); and Showtime’s Shut Up & Dribble, a powerful inside look at the changing role of athletes in our fraught cultural and political environment, through the lens of the NBA.