General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Lion's Den

Lion's Den (Leonera) is a 2008 Argentine prison drama directed by Pablo Trapero, in which a young pregnant woman, Julia, is jailed for the killing of her lover and gives birth to a son she must raise inside a women's prison. It premiered in Competition at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and was produced as a co-production of Argentina, South Korea, and Brazil.¹

Key fact	Detail
Original title / meaning	Leonera, Spanish for a place of transit where a prisoner is held before moving on; Trapero described it as "a cell"²
Director and writers	Directed by Pablo Trapero; screenplay by Alejandro Fadel, Martín Mauregui, Santiago Mitre, and Trapero³
Principal cast	Martina Gusman (Julia), Elli Medeiros (Sofía), Rodrigo Santoro (Ramiro), Laura García (Marta)³
Premiere	In Competition, Cannes Film Festival 2008¹
Runtime and format	113 minutes, color, 35 mm, Spanish language³
Production companies	Matanza Cine, Cineclick Asia (Fantom), Patagonik, Videofilmes³
Reception	91% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (32 reviews); 72% audience score⁴

Spoilers

Plot

Julia (Martina Gusman) wakes in her apartment beside the bloodied bodies of Ramiro (Rodrigo Santoro) and Nahuel; Ramiro is still alive, and his testimony sends her to jail for murder.¹^•³ Whether Julia actually killed the men is never clearly established in the film.⁵ She discovers she is pregnant, and the story shifts from a crime thriller to an exploration of an incarcerated woman raising a child within the prison system.³

After a withdrawn start, Julia is helped through her early days by the fellow inmate Marta (Laura García) and is allowed to raise her newborn son, Tomás, in a ward for mothers.⁶ Her mother, Sofía (Elli Medeiros), returns to her life and, behind Julia's back, works to gain custody of the boy so that he can grow up outside prison.⁶ The film frames the conflict between Julia and her mother as a dilemma: whether it is better for the child to be raised beside his mother in prison, or without her, but in freedom.⁷ Julia also visits Ramiro in the men's prison, where the events of the night of the crime remain muddled for both of them, and she eventually fights for a new trial.¹^•³

Production

Real locations and inmates. The film was shot in the province of Buenos Aires between September and December 2007. According to the production notes, most of it was filmed inside maximum-security prisons with real inmates as extras, which the producers called an unprecedented event in Argentine filmmaking; some guards, matrons, and keepers were played by real staff of the Bonaerense Penitentiary System. Obtaining the permits required legal authorizations, stamps, files, and signatures from multiple authorities.⁸ The press kit thanks eight penitentiary units, including Unidad Penitenciaria N° 1 de Lisandro Olmos and units at Los Hornos, Gorina, San Martín, and Magdalena.⁸

Origins of the project. Trapero has said the starting point was learning about Argentine laws concerning female inmates and their offspring.⁹ In another account, the idea began when his four-year-old son pointed out a pink-colored women's prison along a motorway.⁵ Gusman, Trapero's wife, is both the film's executive producer and its star, and part of her on-screen pregnancy was real.³^•⁵

Release and reception

Lion's Den screened in Competition at Cannes in May 2008, Trapero's third film on the Croisette, and was nominated for the Palme d'Or.¹^•¹⁰ It went on to Karlovy Vary, Toronto, and Helsinki in 2008, and won Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Screenplay, and the Best Film prize at the Lima Latin American Film Festival, plus Best Art Direction and a Special Jury Prize at the Havana International Film Festival.¹¹ A Cannes press-kit summary lists it as a Golden Globes nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.¹²

In Spain, where it was distributed by Alta Classics, the film opened on 21 November 2008 and earned €57,488.78 from 10,568 spectators.¹³ It was released in Germany on June 4, 2009 under the title Löwenkäfig.¹¹ Critics were divided at Cannes itself: a Le Monde critic wrote that he spent nearly two hours wanting to love the film without quite managing it, while the Toronto festival program called it a superb new film and the London Evening Standard later praised it as social realism that avoids melodrama.¹⁴^•³^•¹⁵ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds 91% among 32 critics, with a critics' consensus crediting Martina Gusman with a feral performance in a gripping prison drama.⁴ As of late 2026 it streams in the United States on Netflix and can be rented or bought on Amazon Video.¹⁶

Themes and context

The film examines motherhood inside Argentina's carceral system, where wards house mothers and pregnant inmates and children can grow up behind bars.¹^•¹⁷ Trapero's stated starting point was the Argentine legal framework for female inmates and their children, and reviewers noted his critique of a penitentiary system that subjects pregnant inmates and their newborns to poor living conditions.⁹^•⁵

The filmmakers cited statistics in a MIFF festival note to frame the story: among murders committed in Argentina, just seven percent of those by men are impulsive acts, while 72 percent of those by women are deemed crimes of passion.² Critics placed the film within a wave of prison movies from Brazil and Argentina, distinguishing Trapero's intimate, un-art-directed depiction of messy cells and common spaces from more theatrical treatments.⁹ Time Out described it as part meticulous character study, part hyperrealist drama, as interested in how the institution functions day to day as in the joys and pains of female cohabitation in a confined space.¹⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2000s › Biographical and historical drama films 2000s › Released 2006 to 2009

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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