Arquivo

Ireland, 1964. At a wedding, Margaret is raped by her cousin. In the morning the parish priest comes to get her. The dishonor is an outrage to the family. Bernadette lives in an orphanage. She grows up and her beauty arouses the lust in the young men in her district. Considering that the nature and the character of the girl augur the worst possible, the management of the orphanage forwards her to the only institution capable of keeping her to the straight and narrow. Rose, who is not married, has just given birth to a boy. Separated from the baby, she is taken to the convent of the Mary Magdalene sisters. Margaret, Bernadette, and Rose are set before Sister Bridget, the director of the reformatory who explains to them that, with prayer and work they will atone for their sins and save their souls. The film was inspired in the story of thousands of women rejected by their families and handed over to the Irish church to be exploited as washerwomen and ironers. The last reformatory of this kind existing in Ireland was closed down in 1996.