Written and directed by Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson, co-written by Stella Heath Keir, once the largest women’s prison in Europe, now abandoned. Six ex-inmates revisit, recounting experiences, giving voice to incarcerated women. They explore vacant cells and corridors, recalling memories from their time inside.
Even in 2024, it’s rare to see any explorations of women’s prisons, with perhaps an exception for the typical obsession with murder and serial killers. So, it’s refreshing to see Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson take such a cathartic and reflective view of them here. Especially when they do so in a way that never wanders into scandalous or exploitative territory. The filmmakers interestingly even go so far as to discuss those boundaries within Holloway, the ethical limits to capturing these women’s most vulnerable moments and how much control they should have over that.
The point is never the crimes that these women committed but drawing together the lines of how they all ended up in Holloway, and they’re some very telling paths. The subjects are distinctively different women but as the documentary moves forward, we see how much their stories overlap. It makes very clear the alarming failures of the justice system beginning at such a young age, with no real recourse for rehabilitation or support to build a better future for themselves.
One of the strong aspects of Holloway is how it feels led by its subject, while it does require a certain level of presence from the filmmakers and mediators, it’s the ex-inmates who are driving the conversation forward. It’s a difficult thing to capture that kind of cathartic experience, to delve into traumatic memories, it’s slightly reminiscent of the heart-breaking White Nanny Black Child, in giving its subjects a space to reflect and process.
Compton and Hudson’s directorial style also tries to leave the space open and free, letting the women guide this experience, taking an unobtrusive lens. It can be a little messy at times, adding in more camera movement than it needed, as a perfect stillness may just as well tell this story. Other than those few touches, there’s a nice simplicity to the style, to reflect the humble and honest nature of its subjects. It makes a great comparison to see both Holloway and Daisy-May Hudson’s Lollipop, very different perspectives in using documentary versus fiction but both compellingly telling a similar story.
Holloway is a necessary conversation about how our justice system needs to improve to prevent a vicious cycle of abuse, drugs and jail time. It’s distressing how these women’s experiences make it plain that the UK is failing people at such a young age that it was practically inevitable that they ended up in the prison system. The statistics on imprisoned women that Sophie Compton and Daisy-May Hudson add before the credits roll are shocking, leaving the documentary on a loud, resounding note.
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