This must be one of the most convincing ‘docufictions’ I have even seen. Peter Kerekes spent five years filming in a Ukrainian women’s prison and has crafted an austere and profound drama where the voices of the women are integral to the story.

Lesya (Maryna Klimova) has been sentenced to seven years in prison after killing her husband. She is pregnant and so joins 106 other women in Odessa Correctional Facility Number 74 where she will give birth. She will be allowed to spend two 2-hour sessions per day with her son until he is three. Then he will go to an orphanage unless she can convince her mother to take him until she gets out.

The prison looks like an abandoned factory and has that bleak Soviet-era design and decor that is all faded pastels and hard surfaces. The original title of the film translates as ‘censor’ and this is a clue to what sparked the idea for the film. Kerekes, who is a documentarian, started a project about censorship and through this, met Iryna, a guard at the prison whose job is to censor the letters that the women receive. His time with her uncovered the fascinating stories of these women and 107 Mothers was born.

Lesya almost sleepwalks through her first three years, doing various menial jobs, building a relationship with her son and talking to the other mothers about regret and how best to get parole. The prison is so relaxed that you can only tell the difference between prisoners, officers and other staff by the clothes they wear. A key moment for them all is when their child turns three. They get to make them a cake and this small and sad party is the moment that the child is taken away.

The other mothers talk to ‘the camera’ – narratively they are talking to Iryna – about why they are inside and what it is to be a mother. Iryna in turn is nagged by her mother for not being married or having children and you see her lose herself in the emotions being expressed in the letters that she censors. What is remarkable is that all of the women prisoners (other than Lesya) and staff are the actual people but at no point does it feel like a documentary.

Kerekes treatment of the women feels very even-handed and I believe him when he said in an interview here with Variety that he worked hard to ensure the women had control of their stories. He said:

For the inmates it was a change from the daily prison routine, but also the possibility to confess. They enjoyed the filming. They were coming up with ideas about what to film, scenes, dialogue. Of the 400 prisoners, only three were not willing to participate.

From “‘107 Mothers’ Director Kerekes Reflects on His Venice Film” by Alissa Simon

It feels like he had the perfect blend of reality – the confessions to camera, the real locations, the real people – and a story arc that highlights the moral challenges of the prison system. There is a resolution that goes someway to satisfying the narrative but gives no neat solution to very real problems.

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