Sister act: Minneapolis kids team up with nuns to create TV documentary

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Jon Tevlin, Star Tribune Published February 7, 2004DOCVAR

When a filmmaker and 20 kids from a Minneapolis middle school decided to make a documentary together, they turned their lens to people they knew and respected: four ex-cons with a past of ugly habits.

Their subjects, Jane, Rita, Brigid and Kate McDonald, have indeed served jail time, but only for a couple of days. The four women, sisters in all senses, have been arrested during several protests against Alliant Techsystems, a local producer of defense-related products. As Roman Catholic nuns, they saw it as their duty to speak their minds on war and the profits it brings.

The kids at Southside Family School knew of the nuns. Part of their peace and justice curriculum was to attend rallies, and the McDonalds have been mainstays of the peace movement for decades.

Mike Hazard, who has produced profiles of former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, poet Robert Bly and American Indian writer Jim Northrup, had never heard of the school.

But the match worked. After months of hard, sometimes tedious work, the students helped Hazard and their teacher, Susie Oppenheim, create "Four Sisters for Peace," a 27-minute documentary that will be shown at 7 p.m. Sunday on Twin Cities Public Television.

The show's slogan: "Rated R for rebellious."

Each student got a chance to shoot, edit, write and narrate. But sometimes they needed a little creative help: To compensate for sometimes shaky camera work or to teach them how to "see" through the camera, Hazard invented the "bear hug cam," in which he'd literally pick up the student in a bear hug and help aim the lens.

"Four Sisters for Peace" combines footage captured by the kids at rallies, interviews with each nun and wonderful old footage of the sisters dancing in their habits and working on their farm near Waterton, Minn. They grew up there, with dairy cows, hogs and seven brothers and sisters.

Passing along a passion

Hazard hatched the idea for the film about six years ago after seeing the sisters at protests. He started shooting footage whenever he saw them in action. Eventually, he got a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, as well as private donations; expenses totaled about $6,000.

Hazard, who learned filmmaking at age 10 from his father, wanted to pass along that passion, and he found willing students at Southside.

"I learned early that the camera was a privilege," said Hazard. "As a filmmaker, I got to do things that others didn't get to do."

It also gave him access to the famous and not-so-famous, who trust him to do fair profiles. Celebrity or not, Hazard shuns using that access to make films that "embarrass them or me. When I make a film, I like to make it with them," he said.

He was also determined to get the kids at Southside involved. That meant rotating small groups in and out of the process to keep their attention spans in check.

The editing sessions were especially demanding, students said. Libby Sweet Ruddy, an eighth-grader, came in over Easter break to work on the film. She suffered the bane of artists everywhere: seeing her work on the cutting-room floor.

"The hardest part of it for me was letting go of clips," said Ruddy, "seeing things I really liked that I knew just wouldn't work for the movie."

The novice moviemakers traveled around in a small bus with their slogan on the side: "Kids Make History."

Democracy rules

Hazard found out quickly that democracy is a prime value at Southside. While most documentaries feature one person doing a voiceover, Oppenheim demanded that all the students who wanted to take part get a chance.

So 16 voices take viewers on jaunts with the McDonalds. The effect is both rickety and endearing. "In the end, every word is discernible," said Hazard. "That's what counts."

Footage shot by the kids shows the serious side of the McDonalds, but also their playful nature. Brigid is especially spunky, passing the time during a protest by winging snowballs.

Aldur Lane, a seventh-grader, spent a lot of his free time editing and helping others with computer work. The experience made an impact. "I really want to major in movies," he said with a grin.

"I thought they were cool," Tristan Brown, also a seventh-grader, said of the sisters. "We had what we called sister sightings."

Brigid McDonald said working with the kids was a delight. "They are alert and alive and they treated us so respectfully, like we were their little old grandmas. They're very aware, much more so than when I was at their age."

Adult documentarians would no doubt have kept to questions of conscience and politics. But a very kid-type question led to Hazard's favorite line in the film. Someone asked Brigid if she had pets. She responded with a story on how much her cats gave her:

"I'm trying to purr in life instead of always, you know, being agitated," she said. "So they, they teach me how to purr. I say I'm going to purr for the world."