‘Testimony’ review: Raw, defiant doc gives voice to survivors of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries

Dir: Aoife Kelleher. UK/Eire. 2025. 105mins

Eire’s Magdalene Laundries and Mom And Child Houses – the state-sanctioned, Catholic-run establishments wherein 1000’s of homeless girls and youngsters have been housed (or, extra precisely, incarcerated) – have been the topic of a number of movies over latest years. Now documentary Testimony strikes the story on, centering on the makes an attempt of the Justice For Magdalene (JFM) advocacy group to carry the Irish authorities accountable, and to offer redress to the 1000’s of ladies, alive and lifeless, who have been ensnared on this system. Uncooked, highly effective and shot by with anger and defiance, this respectful, damning movie provides a platform to survivors, who inform their tales with readability and bravado.

Shot by with anger and defiance

Testimony, which is narrated by Imelda Staunton and supported by the BFI and Display Eire, opens within the UK on November 21 after premiering on the Dublin Worldwide Movie Pageant the place it received the ICCL Human Rights award. Becoming a member of the ranks of options as numerous as Small Issues Like These, The Satan’s Doorway, The Magdalene Sisters and Philomena, the movie brings a renewed sense of urgency and resonance to this concern. Director Aoife Kelleher makes use of the identical intimate method she demonstrated in 2024 documentary Mrs Robinson, concerning the first feminine president of Eire. This follow-up ought to draw a modest theatrical viewers earlier than discovering its legs with a streamer or broadcaster. It may be used as a potent device for training and advocacy.

The movie begins in 2013, because the Irish authorities lastly admits the state had been concerned within the working of the Magdalene Laundries, however – initially not less than – did not formally apologise or supply compensation to the ladies concerned. The JFM group, established by Angela Newsome, Claire McGettrick and Mari Steed in 2003, vowed to proceed to struggle. Their ranks embody human rights lawyer Maeve O’Rourke, who, like everybody embedded on this lengthy marketing campaign for justice, carries this concern deep in her soul, fury and heartbreak informing each impassioned speech she makes on behalf of ladies who’ve been silenced for many years.

In fact, Testimony’s most essential ingredient is firsthand interviews with many ladies who skilled the Magdalene Laundries or Mom And Child Houses – the latter of which facilitated the trafficking of youngsters to foster households within the UK, US and past. They embody those that have been locked up and compelled to work as kids; moms separated from their infants; and ladies fostered overseas as infants. Regardless of the extraordinary private horrors of those experiences, recollections are eloquent and measured. These are tough tales to inform, however they completely should be heard.

The Irish authorities, nevertheless, appears reluctant to listen to these girls. After years of insisting it had no case to reply, beneath stress from JFM – and, ultimately, the UN – it commissioned a report on the Magdalene Laundries, for which survivors have been subjected to daunting one-on-one cross-examinations. That was revealed in 2013 and, whereas the federal government did ultimately apologise and supply monetary compensatio, it continues to stay tight-lipped concerning the heinous practices of the Mom and Child houses. That’s regardless of overwhelming proof of wrongdoing, together with the invention of mass toddler and youngster stays within the septic tanks of former houses, and paperwork linking mom and child vaccine trials to pharmaceutical big GlaxoSmithKline. But a 2021 authorities report into the houses discovered little proof of abuse. “Girls’s testimony has no evidential worth,” notes O’Rourke.

Towards this bureaucratic stonewalling, JFM marches on, decided to convey justice to the ladies who have been blamed for thus lengthy – by the federal government, by the church, by society – for the inhumane conditions wherein they discovered themselves trapped. A deeply transferring, bittersweetly euphoric sequence wherein Magdalene survivors meet in Dublin to be honoured at a particular lunch, crowds of onlookers cheering their arrival, highlights simply how essential it’s that Eire totally confronts, understands and makes dignified amends for this nationwide disgrace. Solely then can these girls really discover peace.