New documentary series to focus on Forgiveness
“[Whitney's] work resonates with concern for the human condition.”—NY Times
New York-based filmmaker and producer Helen Whitney focuses on ‘forgiveness’ in her new documentary series to be debuted in the Fall of 2010 on PBS. Forgiveness: A Time to Love, A Time to Hate follows a long list of award-winning work that often focuses on religious and spiritual matters – including an exploration of faith and doubt at Ground Zero following September 11th, a series on Mormanism, a close up of a Trappist monastery and a biography of Pope John Paul II.
The new four-hour, 2 part film will cover a wide range of stories that demonstrate forgiveness and reconciliation – in both the personal and political realms – and will explore forgiveness in even the most tragic circumstances by following stories of individuals facing agonizing choices. The series will focus on the public discourse and understanding of forgiveness and will cover a wide range of stories from adultery and personal betrayal to global reconciliation after genocide.
The first half of the documentary will focus on personal stories of wrongdoing, forgiveness and reconciliation, including an in depth look at the community in Philadelphia that immediately responding to the 2006 shooting of Amish schoolgirls by forgiving the killer and embracing the killer’s family. (Listen to or read a story about this from NPR’s Talk of the Nation)
The second half of the documentary will study the role of reconciliation and forgiveness in the lives of nations and the growing trend of governments stepping up and taking responsibility for past crimes. According to Whitney’s agency, Blue Flower Arts, the “subjects range from the genocide in Rwanda, the truth commission in South Africa, Germany’s penitential journey to more intimate dramas of emotional betrayal and the struggle for forgiveness.”
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Thank-you for sharing this information about Helen Whitney’s film. It is very timely and something I look forward to seeing. As a clinical and political psychologist and the Director of Training and program development for and organization in Washington DC, I do a lot of work in the area of forgiveness from the personal to the political. I also teach at the Peacebuilding Institute at American University where I teach about forgiveness and reconciliation in the political realm as well as courses in conflict transformation so I know how important this topic is. Keep up the good work. I welcome hearing more about what you do. Dr. Eileen R. Borris, author of “Finding Forgiveness:A 7 Step Program for Lettiing go of Anger and Bittereness.”
I’m curious to know why the producer made a glaring omission in discussing the phenomena of genocide, forgiveness and reconciliation, by not also exploring the 96 year-long Turkish state denial of the Armenian Genocide. The extreme pain for the descendants of survivors is compounded by the perennial denial of official recognition of the Genocide by not only Turkey, but also by successive U.S. governments who place Turkey’s strategic value above moral imperative.
In light of this orchestrated effort to block its recognition-and any hope for reconciliation-it is especially regrettable that the producer also chose to ignore the first genocide of the 20th century.