Two Women

Lucy Lawless hosts 5 one-hour episodes in this documentary series produced by October Films production - Discovery Networks Co-production This series of five films bring to life History’s most charismatic women warrior. Shot on location in France, Ireland, Britain, China, and New Mexico, the stories are a heady mix of historical sleuthing and provocative reconstruction brought to the screen by television’s most famous women warrior: Lucy Lawless, star of the television series Xena, Warrior Princess.

The Story of Qiu Ju (see the trailer below) depicts a Chinese peasant woman’s long pursuit for justice in a highly bureaucratic and turbulent rural society. The film beautifully portrays various formal and informal dispute resolution processes as well as enables a glimpse into rural China. While this touching story will surely stay in your heart, it also reminds us of the interesting form true justice can take.

Twenty-three-year-old Judith Wanga grew up in London but was born thousands of miles away in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sent away by her parents to live in Britain as a small child, she’s now returning to Congo – two decades later – to meet them for the first time. She wants to understand the childhood she missed and the country she was forced to leave. After reuniting with her parents in the capital, Kinshasa, Jude heads east to an area of the country that’s been devastated by war. It is the most dangerous place in the world to be a woman, where rape has become a weapon of war. Jude meets survivors – women and children – as well as perpetrators, and finds out what’s driving this brutality – the precious minerals that make our mobile phones and laptops work.

New inmate Marie arrives at an island prison in the women's sector and receives the number 99. The inmates are controlled by the sadistic lesbian warden Thelma Diaz and Governor Santos and submitted to torture, rape and lesbianism. When the Minister of Justice replaces Diaz by Leonie Caroll, Marie believes that her life will improve and her case will be reopened. However, Marie is disappointed with the new warden and decides to escape with two other inmates. But their runaway scheme fails and the three women are chased not only by the guards, but also by male prisoners that have not seen women for many years.

Corky, a lesbian ex con hired to work in an apartment as a plumber, meets neighbors Caesar, who launders money for the Mafia, and his girlfriend Violet. The two women have a love affair and decide to steal $2,000,000 that Caesar has in custody before he gives them back to Mafia boss Gino Marzone. Caesar is set up by the two scheming women as a scapegoat but things start to go wrong when he reacts in an unexpected way…

Valerie Kaprisky plays an innocent girl who doesn't want to be innocent. Then again, sex is not her reward. There is an unexplained mom / daughter relationship that has its moments on screen, but overall fails to really explain the struggle between the two characters. The men that these two women share is a struggle in itself. Both characters want to be loved, then again, sometimes all it is is sex that drives them both.

Europe 1990, the Berlin wall has just crumbled: Katrine, raised in East Germany, but now living in Norway for the last 20 years, is a “war child”; the result of a love relationship between a Norwegian woman and a German occupation soldier during World War II. She enjoys a happy family life with her mother, her husband, daughter and granddaughter. But when a lawyer asks her and her mother to witness in a trial against the Norwegian state on behalf of the war children, she resists. Gradually, a web of concealments and secrets is unveiled, until Katrine is finally stripped of everything, and her loved ones are forced to take a stand: What carries more weight, the life they have lived together, or the lie it is based on?

Stephane Audran and Jean-Louis Trintignant star in this classic landmark film. Socialite Frederique encounters young Why in Paris, she seduces her and whisks her off to St.Tropez. When Paul meets Why, he too charms her and comes between the two lovers. Soon all three are involved in a ménage a trois beset by jealousy, madness, and, ultimately, murder.