Educated in the parochial schools of Catholic Beverly, Mary Fishman knows nuns. In the mid-70s, at Mother McAuley high, her principal was a nun. So were some teachers. She ticks them off: “I had nuns for French for three years. I took orchestra—that was a nun. Four years. English, I had one.”
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Well into adulthood Fishman retained what she calls “a kid’s view of Catholicism,” the feeling that strict adherence to the church’s doctrines was requisite for any good Catholic. She shed it in the process of making the documentary Band of Sisters, her first film. She learned a lot from the nuns she interviewed, Fishman says, not least the realization of how greatly at odds with their cultural representation is the reality of their charitable and political work in the U.S.; her film’s subjects aren’t the rigid schoolmarms you might find in central casting.
The result is a little history and a lot of profile, with protagonists including an organic farmer in New Jersey and a natural healer who treats low-income people in Milwaukee. The most potent characters, whom Fishman met through her own parish’s peace and justice committee, are Pat Murphy and JoAnn Persch, Sisters of Mercy who live just two blocks from the filmmaker. In the film the duo agitate to provide pastoral care inside the federal detention center in Broadview, the Chicago area’s last stop for undocumented immigrants before they’re deported.
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Fall Arts Calendar: An event for each of the season’s 80 days
