Golden Lion-Best Film, Venice Film Festival 2002
Audience Award, Ljubljana Film Festival 2002
Discovery Award, Toronto Film Festival
Rural Ireland, 1964. 4 young women are condemned by Church and family to the brutal, dehumanising nightmare that is life in the Magdalene asylum. They are there to atone for their sins: the sin of being an unmarried mother, of being too pretty or too ugly or too simple-minded or too clever or a victim of rape who refuses to keep quiet. And for these sins they are put to work...364 days a year, unpaid. Half-starved, humiliated, raped and exploited in God's sweatshop.

Funding: Wild Bunch, Momentum, Lucky Red, Film Council, Irish Film Board, Scottish Screen, Ingenious & Dumfries & Galloway.