One Minute to Nine is one of three films that I’ve been wandering around Austin championing as a must-see, and every time I offer the in-a-nutshell synopsis to someone who hasn’t heard of it, their jaw drops. This is what I’ve been saying: One Minute to Nine is about Wendy Maldonado, a woman whose husband beat and emotionally tortured her and her three sons for two decades. One day, the woman cracks and beats her husband’s head in with a hammer. The film tracks her last few days before she goes to prison for the crime, as she explains why she did it, why she feels no remorse, and why ten years in a prison is a victory compared to what her life would have been like had her husband lived.

Disturbing and heartbreaking in equal measure, the film blends casual interviews with Maldonado and her sons with crime scene photos, 911 calls, and family home videos to create an almost unbearably intense portrait of the claustrophobic fear that pushed Maldonado over the edge. Mostly, the camera just follows Wendy as she gets her affairs in order, all the while telling her story in grave, matter-of-fact detail. There’s no question that Wendy’s husband was a scum bag––we hear countless stories of his daily abuse, we see video of him cheerfully manhandling the carcass of a deer, we see evidence on Wendy’s body, in her literal scars and knocked-out teeth. What is a mystery, at least initially, is why murder was necessary. What about the police? Why couldn’t Wendy’s female family members, who surround her in her last days of freedom, have helped facilitate an escape?

Director Tommy Davis slowly but surely makes it clear that this is more than just a complex personal tragedy––it’s a human rights issue. Wendy’s husband refused to work and forbid her to do so as well; she couldn’t run away because he was always home watching, and there wasn’t any cash to fuel the escape. Trapped in the impossible economic situation of raising four children with an excessively abusive and clinically insane husband in rural Oregon, her basic rights of life and liberty threatened every day, the police and neighbors aware of but not interested in aiding her situation, Wendy’s basic survival instincts kicked in. She acted to save her own life and those of her children, and as a reward, she’s imprisoned. We talk about the oppression of women in other cultures, but poor women in dangerous domestic situations in this country not only have absolutely no recourse to escape their daily drudgery, but the legal system is indifferent to their special circumstances.

What’s maybe most amazing about the footage that Davis shoots, is how direct and matter-of-fact Wendy is about her history with her husband and her lack of remorse for his killing, especially considering that Davis and his subject had no previous relationship before shooting. We come to realize that even with ten years in prison ahead of her, in a world in which her husband no longer exists, Wendy feels free. One Minute to Nine is hauntingly sad, but what makes it truly emotionally devastating is that it’s anchored by Wendy’s hope.

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