Women's Prison

The film takes place in a women’s prison in Iran. The story spans eighteen years. Two women stand at its centre. One is the warden newly appointed to the prison. She is devout and hard, and served at the Iraqi front. The other is a young midwife named Mitra. Mitra is serving a sentence for killing the stepfather who beat her mother. In the early years the warden tries to break her. Punishments come one after another. During a bombing raid the staff go down to the shelter. Mitra delivers a baby in the cell while they are gone. Even that becomes grounds for punishment. After eight years the manner of the warden begins to change. Mitra protects a new inmate from rape at the hands of her older cellmates. Years later that baby comes back as a young girl. Roya Nownahali and Roya Taymourian appear in the hundred and six minute film, an Iranian production Manijeh Hekmat finished in 2002.