Detained is an absorbing observation from within a Swedish immigration detention centre for rejected asylum seekers. The film follows detainees and staff over the course of a summer. A mother separated from her children faces deportation, a young man waits for his life to begin, and staff members struggle with the impersonal bureaucracy required of their job. With great sensibility to its characters and environment, Detained depicts the silent psychological horror faced by those held in modern detention centres and questions this crucial, global phenomenon.