107 Mothers

Life inside a prison for women in Odessa is brought to dramatic life in Péter Kerekes docudrama blend of fiction and reality. Lesya (Maryna Klimova, the only professional actor in the cast) is serving a seven-year prison sentence for her husband's murder. When her son Kolya is born, he is allowed to stay in prison with the other small children until his third birthday. Together they lead a quiet and pleasant life according to circumstances. But as Kolya's third birthday approaches and no shelter has yet been found for him, Lesya begins to panic… ‘A formally striking, uniquely affecting women's prison study… Though “107 Mothers” is predominantly a dramatized work—scripted by Kerekes with accomplished filmmaker Ivan Ostrochovský (“Servants”), and cast mostly with real-life interview subjects playing themselves—it strikes an immediate note of authenticity… Resisting a jagged vérité aesthetic, Kerekes and cinematographer Martin Kollar instead find deftly stylized means of conveying the prison’s strange social fabric… [A] novel, briskly beautiful film.’—Guy Lodge, Variety