WITHIN THESE WALLS

With every hard year of her life mapped out on her face, Joan Thomas (Oscar-winner Ellen Burstyn, Requiem for a Dream, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore), has found herself incarcerated on drug charges. Among a population of hardened criminals, Joan remains a loner, resigned to getting high to escape a private torment. To prison supervisor Melinda Donovan (Lynn Adams, NYPD Blue, Ally McBeal) she represents another life gone hopelessly wrong. To Pauline Quinn, (Oscar nominee Laura Dern, Ramblin’ Rose, Wild at Heart) a nun from a Dominican order who has arrived at the prison offering a unique opportunity, Joan is precisely the kind of challenge she’s looking for.

Sister Pauline’s mission is to enrol three women into the Prison Pet Partnership Program and teach them to train dogs to assist the disabled. She finds two willing participants in Eliza (Lucinda Davis, Feast of All Saints) and Leda (Maria Herrera, Trixie). Recognising a kindred spirit in the troubled Joan, Pauline persuades her to join. It begins as a remarkable opportunity for the prisoner. It becomes as promising an opportunity for Pauline as well—a chance to purge herself of her own demons, to free herself from her own private prison, and to finally share a secret past that bonds the two women in profound and liberating ways.

Directed by Mike Robe (The Princess and the Marine, Return to Lonesome Dove) and written by Robert J. Aurech (Into Thin Air, Brotherhood of Murder), this inspiring true story is a vivid depiction of lost lives behind bars, of found hope, and of the resurrection of the human spirit.