P.O.V. "What I Want My Words to Do to You" offers an unprecedented look into the minds and hearts of the women inmates of the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester, New York. The film goes inside a writing workshop, led by playwright Eve Ensler, consisting of 15 women, most of whom were convicted of murder. Through a series of exercises and discussions, the women, including former Weather Underground members Kathy Boudin and Judith Clark, delve into and expose their most terrifying realities as they grapple with the nature of their crimes and their own culpability. The film culminates in an emotionally charged prison performance of the women's writing by acclaimed actors Mary Alice, Glenn Close, Hazelle Goodman, Rosie Perez and Marisa Tomei.

What I Want My Words to Do to You, winner of the Freedom of Expression Award at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, aired on Detroit Public TV on Sunday, 12/21, 2003 at 11:30 p.m. ET.

The classes, led by Ensler (The Vagina Monologues), at the correctional facility have given birth to a powerful writing community in which women from strikingly different strata of society, all of whom are serving long sentences for murder and other serious crimes, help each other tell true stories that sear the soul. The film documents both the wrenching journeys undertaken by the inmates to find and understand the words that tell their own stories, and the power of those words to move the wider world.

Participants include:

• Pamela Smart, who agonizes over the affair she had with a high school student who eventually murdered her husband.
• Former Weather Underground members Judith Clark and Kathy Boudin, imprisoned since 1981 for their participation in the robbery of an armored car in Nyack, New York, that resulted in the deaths of three men.
• Betty Harris, who takes "26 pills, two times a day" for various health problems, and admits to killing her mother after enduring years of abuse.
• Keila Pulinario, in her mid-20's, convicted of murdering a man she had accused of raping her.
• Donna Hylton, a former track star convicted of murder, who, after more than a decade in prison, counsels a younger inmate about the process of taking responsibility for one's crime.
• Monica Szlekovics, in her mid-20s, who tries, through her writing, to convey to her mother that, with a sentence of 50-to-life, there's a strong chance she will never leave prison.
• Roslyn Smith, in her late-30s, convicted of murder at 17, who writes about the surprising outburst by a man who visited her in the honor housing unit to learn about Bedford's guide-dog training program.
• Cynthia Berry, an ex-drug addict and prostitute who is filled with near-suicidal guilt years after murdering her 71-year-old "john."

The writing group members confront the lives they've ruined, the families left behind and their own lives as they might have been. What I Want My Words to Do to You is structured around the writing exercises that Ensler assigned to the inmates. The exercises appear deceptively simple at first: inmates are asked to "tell the facts of your crime." As the film progresses, the process of writing itself becomes a process of discovery and self-reflection. The inmates face painful truths about the choices that irrevocably changed the course of their lives. The exercises - and the highly charged discussions they trigger - reveal how much the women grapple with their own culpability.

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