Directed by Mai Zetterling • 1982 • United Kingdom
Starring Chrissie Cotterill, Amanda York, Elizabeth Edmonds

Something of a companion to Alan Clarke’s youth-in-revolt bombshell SCUM (both were written by playwright Roy Minton), SCRUBBERS is a viscerally gritty immersion into the harrowing world of a reform school for girls, directed with delirious intensity by Swedish iconoclast Mai Zetterling. Confined to a brutal borstal, Annetta (Chrissie Cotterill) longs to escape in order to reconnect with her infant daughter, while the lesbian Carol (Amanda York) is determined to find a way to be transferred to the same prison as her girlfriend. The girls are from all different walks of life but learn to survive together, fighting the system and often one another.