Femmes de Fleury

Fleury M‚rogris is one of the largest women's prisons in Europe. Every year around three thousand women are sent here to serve their time. Eighty percent of the women is addicted to drugs, sixty percent is recidivist and forty-five percent is HIV- positive. For most of them the past consists of rape, drug addiction and prostitution. The film contains familiar shots of slamming doors that only half hush the yelling from the cells, and guards who walk up and down the long hallways with echoing footsteps. And yet femmes de Fleury does not exactly present a clich‚ image of life in prison. The Fleury M‚rogris policy is aimed at supporting the women in their return to society as much as possible. However, many women are afraid of the life that awaits them outside the prison walls. Often they take up their habit again within weeks of their release and go back to their previous lifestyle. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)