documentary    72’    USA    2026

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Inspired by the Emmy Award-winning short documentary of the same name, The Dads chronicles a community of fathers of trans and nonbinary children as they are forced to choose family over country as a powerful anti-trans agenda takes hold in the United States. Filmed over the course of a year spanning retreats in rural Maine and Minnesota, protests, family milestones, a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court decision, and the collapse of gender-affirming care for youth, The Dads captures this national reckoning with remarkable intimacy through verité footage and interviews with the film’s main protagonists. This is fatherhood as an act of radical love and resistance.

 

Cast & Crew

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Director: Luchina Fisher

Starring: Stephen Chukumba, Ed Diaz, AC Goldberg

Producers: Stephen Chukumba, Luchina Fisher 

Cinematographer: Ukachi Arinzeh

Music: Ella Feingold, Charlie Hunter

Editors: Patrick Wright, Chelsi Bullard

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Festivals & Awards

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South by Southwest FF

Florida FF

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Reviews

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These men are vulnerable and honest in front of Fisher’s camera, telling their stories but also revealing their fears as the world changes radically in November 2024.

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– Brian Tallerico, Roger Ebert

 

The Dads is a moving and galvanizing feature that expands on Luchina Fisher’s original short.

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– Douglas Davidson, Elements of Madness

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Luchina Fisher

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Luchina Fisher is the Emmy-Award winning director of The Dads, which won the 2024 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Short Form Program and GLAAD's Special Recognition Award. Her feature directorial debut, Mama Gloria, was nominated for a 2022 GLAAD Media Award and broadcast on PBS. She has also directed several award-winning documentaries, sits on the board of New York Women in Film and Television, and teaches film at Yale and Fairfield

University.