Peter Mullen’s shocking, Venice Golden Lion winning film, The Magdalene Sisters is based on real events that took place in Ireland from the 1960s until 1996 when an estimated 30,000 young women, considered to have committed sexual sins, were sent away to work in laundries run by the Sisters of Magdalene Order. This is a powerful, dramatic, moving, dark, and at times depressing, expose on the horrific living conditions, psychological and physical abuse that these girls were subjected to.

Mullen designed the fictional characters in the film based on interviews with actual survivors of the laundries, working each of their stories into his plot. Margaret is a shy girl who is raped by her cousin at a wedding shaming her family; Patricia Rose gets pregnant out of marriage and her parents take her baby away from her; Bernadette is a pretty girl who is deemed “too flirtatious”; and Crispina is a loving young mom whose children are forbidden to see her and are being raised by her sister. The imposing Sister Bridget is pure evil, and will strike fear into the souls of Magdalene viewers.

Angry, compassionate but never hysterical, The Magdalene Sisters is a true cinematic achievement — a gut-wrenching expose of the mistreatment of young Irish women at the hands of men, women, the Government and the Catholic Church. It is a riveting piece of drama about an uncomfortable and conveniently forgotten slice of recent history.