Women's Prison

The Perfect Victim

2012 · ★ 7

For over thirty years, three women have languished in Missouri State prison under unjust sentences for killing their abusive husbands. Denied the opportunity to enter the abuse into evidence, each of the women represents a system broken by outdated and media-sensationalized stereotypes. When a greater understanding of the "battered" syndrome change legal practices in 2000, Missouri's Governor crafts a new law demanding the parole board reevaluate each woman's case.

Ashley Smith : Out of Control

2010

Ashley Smith was a troubled 19-year-old when she choked herself to death at Ontario's Grand Valley Institution for Women. Her death made national headlines and led to a scathing report by Canada’s federal prison ombudsman. Incarceration for Ashley began at a youth detention centre in New Brunswick. Her crime: she had tossed crabapples at a mailman. Her one-month sentence stretched to almost four years, served in five provinces. With the prison videotapes and exclusive access to Smith’s parents, along with a fellow inmate, this documentary exposes a system that fails the many Ashley Smiths still incarcerated in Canadian institutions.

Debut

2017 · ★ 6.8

The soulless atmosphere of a women's penitentiary destroys the prisoners' personality, kills all femininity in them. The film looks at the rationality of the long prison terms for women with children.

Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street

2000 · ★ 6.9

The film follows a simple structure, and shows the drug-related degradation of five youths (Jake, Tracey, Jessica, Alice, Oreo) during the course of three years. The film depicts drug-related crimes and diseases: prostitution, male prostitution, AIDS, and lethal overdoses.

Like a Rose

A short documentary from 1975 about two women serving 25 years in a Missouri penitentiary. Made with an all-female crew.

Sister Hearts

2018 · ★ 9

Maryam Henderson-Uloho spent thirteen years in prison in Louisiana, seven in solitary confinement. After her release she struggled to find housing or employment. She began selling secondhand goods out of a suitcase on a street corner in New Orleans. In just three years, she grew her business to a brick-and-mortar thrift store—one that also provides housing and employment for other formerly-incarcerated women. She calls those women—and her store—Sister Hearts.

Holloway

2025

Holloway — once the largest women's prison in Europe, now abandoned. Six ex-inmates revisit, recounting experiences, giving voice to incarcerated women. They explore vacant cells and corridors, recalling memories from their time inside.

Máma z basy

2017 · ★ 3

No synopsis available.

Free CeCe!

2016 · ★ 6.7

CeCe McDonald survived a brutal attack, only to be incarcerated for defending her life. After an international movement to free her, CeCe emerged as a leader to interrogate the prison industrial complex and inspire women to fight back when attacked.

Mo'nique: I Coulda Been Your Cellmate

2007 · ★ 6.2

Mo'nique visited a women's prison and performed her stand-up comedy for the inmates. I Coulda Been Your Cellmate is as much a documentary as it is a performance film.

Cages

2017

The final months of pregnancy and the first ones after the birth of a baby are unique experiences in a woman's life. And when this daily life is lived inside a prison?

Born in Evin

2019 · ★ 6.4

Follows filmmaker and actress, Maryam Zaree, on her quest to find out the violent circumstances surrounding her birth inside one of the most notorious political prisons in the world.