Hot Docs 2009

How could you forgive the person who murdered a member of your family? Anne Marie Hagan's father was murdered by the boy next door. Lesley Parrott's young daughter was raped and strangled. Alan McBride's wife was killed in an IRA bombing in Belfast. Reverend Julie Nicholson's daughter died in the al-Qaida bombing at the Edgeware tube station in London. With courage and honesty, four people share their profound personal journeys through loss, grief and anger, and describe the ripples of violence that spread throughout their communities. Each eloquently describes the complex process from "a place in your soul that you don't even know exists" toward healing, some through forgiveness and others through reconciliation and activism. At a time when horrific acts of personal and political violence have become sound bites in the daily news, and the media render violence into spectacle to increase ratings or sell papers, this powerful film shines a serious in-depth light onto the impact of violence on individuals and communities in the hope that these testimonies will help others to break the circles of violence. Presented with COLD RUST.