Women are the fastest growing U.S. prison population today. Eighty percent are mothers of school-age children. Jenifer McShane's absorbing documentary gives human dimensions to these rarely reported statistics, taking us inside Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison north of New York City.
MOTHERS OF BEDFORD follows five women of diverse backgrounds and incarcerated for different reasons in dual struggles to be engaged in their children's lives and become their better selves. It shows how long-term sentences affect mother-child relationships and how Bedford's innovative Children's Center helps women maintain and improve bonds with children and adult relatives awaiting their return.
Filmmaker, Jenifer McShane, spent five years interviewing and visiting these women inside prison and the families awaiting their return. MOTHERS OF BEDFORD premiered at HOT DOCS 2011 and has screened at Lincoln Center and many other festivals and independent theaters in the US.