Prison, Mum and Me
Documentary following the lives of three teenage girls whose mums are serving time in prison. How does having a mum behind bars affect their lives?
Relationships between teenage girls and their mothers are never easy. But how does it feel when your mum - the one person who's supposed to protect and nurture you - is deemed to be such a threat to society that she's locked up in prison?
Every year in Britain, 17,000 children and young people are separated from their mums by imprisonment - but as there is no established procedure for taking care of the children of prisoners, their experiences frequently go unheard and unsupported.
Filmed over a six-month period, Prison, Mum and Me follows the lives of three teenage girls whose mums are involved in the prison system to explore what life is like growing up with a mum behind bars.
Sixteen-year-old Cheyenne is in her final year of school and about to sit her GCSEs although lately, she's having trouble concentrating on her school work. Cheyenne's mum is coming to the end of a two-year sentence and Cheyenne is counting down the days until the release and hoping that this time, she'll get her mum back for good.
Charlotte is seventeen. Her mum has been in and out of prison all Charlotte's life and is in court facing yet another sentence. Charlotte desperately wants her mum to stop committing crime but has decided that if she can't help mum, she's determined to find a very different path for herself.
Amy is eighteen and in her first year at university. Four years ago Amy's mum committed a crime that even Amy is unable to forgive her for and she's now facing the first steps towards adulthood without the reassuring presence of a mum.
With intimate access to three girls' remarkable and often heart-breaking stories, this film discovers what it's like to be a teenager - dealing with all the usual pressures of growing up and at the same time, having to cope with the stigma and stress of your mum being in and out of prison.
