The film is a protest against the UK government’s cuts to the Mental Health budget, which are forcing many women’s aid centres to close their doors, leaving many victims homeless and marked for life. 
 

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The Refuge won an award for best short in the Social Machinery Film Festival in Italy, and is part of the official selection of
The Women’s Film Festival in Philadelphia and the L’étrange Film Festival in Paris, 2018. Maria Millan was also invited to have a special solo screening with a Q&A at Silencio, the David Lynch's private members' club in Paris last 26th September 2018.

Based on true stories, The Refuge sheds light on the fact that women are being marginalised instead of being accepted into society especially when being in crisis. 
With an all female cast and and written, produced and directed by a woman, The Refuge aims to call the attention on gender disparity in the filmmaking industry.