Docs to Watch

Holloway

This documentary starts with six women going back to Holloway, one of England’s most notorious women’s prisons. It’s a place each of them spent time in as inmates.

Holloway closed in 2016 and sat empty and derelict for years before it was finally demolished. Just before the bulldozers came in, these six women were given the chance to return.

If you've seen The Work, this is in a similar vein. They spend five days sitting together in the prison chapel with a therapist, talking about their lives and what brought them there.

They all have very different memories of Holloway. For some it was horrific, one remembers it almost fondly, another says it felt like home. The film never really gets into the crimes that landed them in prison, and as they start to open up it turns into what happened in their lives before prison.

Around 30% of women in prison spent time in care as children, and more than half have been victims of domestic abuse. Those numbers really start to mean something when you hear their stories: childhood trauma, abusive relationships, addiction, time in care.

The documentary is about prison, and it isn’t. These six women who had to learn how to adapt to difficult circumstances very early in life, and all the different ways that shaped them. They’re all incredibly impressive in their own ways, and several now run charities and campaign for women still inside.

Holloway is gone. But they’re not.

Directed by Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson