Director’s Statement
Researcher Raquel Osborne and I wanted to make a documentary about lesbian relationships in prison.
Following Fefa Vila's offer to participate in the cultural programme of "The Future of the Revolt" as part of the Madrid World Pride 2017, the idea took shape.
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At that moment we contacted the researcher Estibaliz de Miguel (author of the book "Relaciones amorosas de las mujeres presas") so that she could collaborate with us and we got down to work.
The documentary project has had as its starting point the visibility of the sex-affective relationships between women prisoners and how it can be a survival strategy within the prison. We had to rebuild the reality that is lived on the other side of the walls with the testimonies of former prisoners because they did not allow us access to the prisons. Nor did we find archive footage of everyday life in prison We only had a few clues in the memoirs of former prisoners.
There is total obscurantism about what goes on inside the prisons, but we were not discouraged.
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We travelled for miles in search of testimonies and participated in meetings of associations supporting prisoners, safe spaces where the situation in prisons is reported but where it is not possible to record or photograph.
There I learned about the problems of gender discrimination suffered by cis and trans women but I couldn't find people who wanted to participate in the documentary. It was logical, the ex-prisoners we were looking for had a triple stigma: being women, having been imprisoned and having had non-normative sexual experiences.
The luck or the magic that usually accompanies the creative processes made it fall into my hands a work that dealt with the same issues that we wanted to capture in the documentary. This was the boost I needed.
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Little by little we found women who wanted to share their experience, researchers who shared their work with us. We met travel companions, friends, colleagues.
When I put the camera in front of these women willing to relive that painful stage of their lives, I couldn't think of accessory elements, situation plans, inserts that would "decorate" their words. Their testimonies invaded everything.
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It is strange to contrast the silence outside the prisons with the stories about the bustling life inside. In these stories there was always the sound of a megaphone giving orders from morning to night. Saying what to do at all times. This is why we recreate the atmosphere of the prison yard, a place where time does not pass and the megaphone does not stop "talking".
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We ourselves starred in these scenes.. For a few moments we felt imprisoned