According to human rights organisations, there are 45 million cases of modern-day slavery worldwide. Bernadett Tuza-Ritter’s documentary is dedicated to one of them, a case right in the heart of Europe. A Woman Captured follows the life of the 52-year-old Hungarian Marish, who has been held captive by a family for ten years. She works without pay for up to 20 hours every day and is only allowed to leave the house with the permission of her ›owner‹. Marish dreams of finding her freedom again, but her fear of the threatening consequences is too great.
The director Bernadett Tuza-Ritter spent two years filming Marish. The friendship that develops between the two in this time prompts Marish to take the dangerous step. She decides to plan her escape.

»The main point of my artistic concept was to bring the viewer as close to the protagonist’s situation and emotions as possible, therefore the majority of the film is basically close-ups of Marish. I never wanted to paint a detailed portrait of the ›villain‹ on the other hand, because the problem is not her. It is a much bigger issue, a widespread problem, and I wanted to emphasize the universality of this problem. Modern day slavery exists all over the world, with no regard to gender, age, culture or ethnicity. So the visual concept was designed to create emotional attachment to Marish, while it was also a bit of an experiment: to see whether you can build a villain out of fragments, noises and shades.«
– Bernadett Tuza-Ritter