In the modern, democratic nation of Israel a woman cannot have her marriage annulled without her husband's consent. While husbands are able to live with other women, and even withhold child support, wives are forbidden to keep the company of other men. At times, these often well-educated and independent women have no choice but to purchase, for no mean sum, their freedom from their spouses.

Anat Zuria's Sentenced to Marriage follows the plight of three such women - Tamara, Michelle and Rachael - trapped unhappily in their marriages and facing the behemoth of this fundamentalist Orthodox Jewish law. For two years Zuria (Purity, MIFF 04) follows the Kafkaesque struggle of these women as they battle against the system with the help of a group of female Orthodox rabbinical advocates.

Zuria's powerful and moving social commentary was the winner of Best Documentary in the Jerusalem Film Festival, 2004, and was nominated for a Silver Wolf in IDFA (Amsterdam).