Lion's Den (2008)

Argentinean director Pablo Trapero's fifth film, "Leonera" ("Lion's Den",) takes on the underutilized subject of motherhood behind bars. After a sketchy altercation with results in her lover's death, pregnant Julia (very nicely played by Martina Gusman) is convicted of murder and sent to a prison for female offenders with young children.

   If not for the alliance of gay prisoner Marta (Laura García), Julia would quickly become a victim of the predatory mothers of the ward, but tension rises when the baby is born and Julia's mother (Elli Medeiros) wants to take him home.

   It's a bizarre set-up: babies and children living behind bars with their convict mothers, witnessing daily cruelty and catfights from an early age. What crime have these children committed, but being born to the wrong mother? Yet they must live among them like outlaws.