GANGSTER GIRLS

They dangle somewhere between a heroin kick and a toy gun robbery, shopping fever and wailing misery. They learn English and prison jargon. They wait for vicarious happiness smuggled into the prison and their next pass: In Austria's only women's prison in Schwarzau, Lower Austria, drug couriers, robbers and swindlers share cells and desires. They dream of their distant children or of one of the young male prisoners from the Gerasdorf penitentiary, who are taken to the women's prison for joint theater rehearsals once a week. Was it bad luck or guilt, destiny or stupidity that put them behind bars? The answers the young women present in improvised stage performances are often completely different from the ones they reveal in intense, thoughtful interviews. Gangster Girls creates an image of prison institutions from the different meanings they have in the lives of the various protagonists: an instrument for just punishment or a school of crime, a desperately needed compulsory withdrawal treatment, a useful break for reflection or, simply, bad company in an accursed home.