MY LIFE INSIDE is a riveting and potent study of one woman’s battle to save her life and keep her family together amidst bigotry and a tainted justice system.

Rosa was living happily—albeit illegally—in Austin, Texas. In her early 20s, she had married and started a family there while working as a babysitter. But when a child in her care choked to death, her pleasant working-class life did not just unravel; it was picked apart by the police, child protective services, and prosecutors.

Director Lucía Gajá meticulously pieces together a story that spans two vastly different countries and cultures. Her access to interrogation videos and courtroom proceedings add depth that talking heads alone cannot provide. This footage reveals bigotry that manifests not only in the Austin Police Department’s treatment of Rosa, but also in the prosecuting attorney’s shockingly derogatory comments about her.

Other footage from Gajá’s trip to Rosa’s family home in the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec provides us with a wealth of character witnesses that an Austin jury would never see or hear. Armed with ambiguous evidence and arguments from all parties, we must reconcile our grief over the loss of a child with our understanding of the greater context of social justice. This task is a demanding one, and Gajá’s exhaustive filmmaking and masterful editing reconstruct the events and weave together the threads that sustain our emotional investment from the first frame to the last.

–Deborah L. Jaramillo