Set in a former prison in Buenos Aries, this film tells the story of a group of cis and trans people who were all imprisoned in women’s jails in Argentina. The film is based on what was seen and experienced by the protagonists, who enact and fictionalise aspects of their own stories. Music plays a key role, with musical numbers repeatedly woven into the story. Some of the protagonists play in a band. One introduces voguing as a dance to the film, offering a choreography for the others. The film starts with Yoseli and her first day in prison. After her, an ever-growing group of people are introduced as she meets them in jail. The film takes aspects of their interwoven situations as its themes, including falling in love, family visits and the guards’ misbehaviour. Reas is not the first time director Lola Arias has worked with lay actors. The film developed out of workshops in prisons in Argentina. The closed, violent institution only allows the bodies trapped in the prison a limited opportunity for expression. So the workshops attempted to use bodywork and movement to counteract this restriction for a few moments. The first scene of the film, with Yoseli standing in the centre of our view, shows the violent force behind how prisons deal with inmates’ bodies. At the end, however, the focus shifts away from individual bodies to the building itself as the embodiment of incarceration.

Content note