On the small island of Giudecca, not far from Venice, stands a cutting-edge women’s penitentiary institute. During an art workshop in which several inmates are working to make self-portraits, the protagonists tell their stories: Jenni grew up in an environment that shaped her toward wrong-doing and grapples with her sense of guilt; Rachida only felt free when she broke away from the grip of a violent husband; Patrizio is trying to reconstruct what happened on the night her life changed; Giulia has just finished serving a long sentence and looks to the future with renewed trust. Personal stories of broken family relationships, violence suffered and inflicted, irreversible guilt, all united by an awareness the inmates have regained by means of the work that incarceration has forced them to do on themselves.

Director's Statement

At the beginning of Giudecca there are photographs. Faces printed on paper, destined to be engraved, traversed, in part erased. It is through these faces that I have chosen to look at the prison. A prison that, as the portraits take shape, backs away step by step as they come forward.