Sister Helen Paul La Greca Digital Life DVD

Sister Helen
starring: Paul La Greca
directed by: Rebecca Cammisa, Rob Fruchtman

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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780767066600
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
ISBN: 076706660X
Label: New Video Group
Manufacturer: New Video Group
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: New Video Group
Region Code: 1
Release Date: December 28, 2004
Running Time: 88 minutes
Sales Rank: 58915
Studio: New Video Group
Theatrical Release Date: 2001

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Editorial Review:

Description:
One of the most unanimously acclaimed documentaries in recent years and winner of the coveted Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, this emotionally compelling film is an inspirational and uplifting portrait of a truly colorful and most unusual New York character. Brash, foul-mouthed, and no-nonsense, Sister Helen Travis is not your typical saintly soul. A recovering alcoholic who lost her husband and sons to substance abuse, she single-handedly fights her own war on drugs as director of a halfway house for recovering addicts in NYC’s South Bronx. Filmmakers Rob Fruchtman and Rebecca Cammisa put their fly-on-the-wall, cinema verité technique to expert use as they vividly capture the complex love/hate relationship between this tough-as-nails nun and the men who both fear her and rely on her to help them battle their own inner demons. Inspired by Sinatra’s 'my-way-or-the-highway' mantra, Sister Helen runs a tight ship in which everyone must obey her rules and the hand that writes them. For the residents who wish to permanently kick the habit, this sobering dose of tough love may be their last and only hope.

Amazon.com:
Sister Helen offers a candid look at an unconventional nun. Tough-talking Sister Helen Travis is a recovered alcoholic who reinvented herself at age 56, after the loss of her husband and sons, by joining the Benedictine order in 1986. Two years later, she opened a recovery center for men in the rat-infested South Bronx (literally--the tenants battle several during the course of the film). As Sister Helen explains, 'I try to do for other people's sons what I didn't do for my own. It's a second chance.' Daughter Mary helps out at the center, but life mostly revolves around men like Major, an alcoholic, and Robert, a crack addict. They're everything to her and she to them--mother, counselor, warden. Her rules are strict (no female visitors, regular urine tests, community service), but her love and support is boundless. Sister Helen is a worthy testament to an unforgettable character. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- fine documentary--even if it can be controversial
Sister Helen is a superb, insightful documentary partly about Helen Travis, who at 56 became a nun. Two years later, Sister Helen opened a transitional home for men who were addicted to drugs or alcohol. Sister Helen has her personal reasons for trying to help these down and out men: her life had already been very rough. Indeed, Helen Travis had endured more than most of us could ever bear. She lost her husband to alcoholism; one of her sons died of a drug overdose and another son was stabbed seventeen times at the tender age of fifteen.

In order to have empathy for Helen, you need to keep in mind that she came from a tough as nails, rough background. Sister Helen may have been wearing a nun's habit; but yes, she DID keep her own ways. She was very foul-mouthed; and she DID use her power to boss around the men who lived in her transitional home. This is going to cause great controversy because there ... Read More

Rating:

- very moving
this woman was a great person and touch many lives, but i bet they never make her a saint. nevertheless, she is me and to many people. God bless her and may the good lord hold her in his/her hands forever. I hope she is very his two sons finially again.

Rating:

- It Takes a Special Kind of Person
When St. Paul was in Athens, he noted all the temples to the different gods; even one to 'The Unknown God." When he began to speak to the people, he noted how religious they were and then continued by saying that he came to proclaim the unknown God they worshiped without knowing Him. [See Acts 17:23.] The point is that he acknowledged the way the people were, and addressed them in terms they could understand. While Sister Helen's manner might seem rough to many people, she also recognized the men as they were and spoke to them in terms with which they were familiar. It is important to understand this concept because it is the key to Sister Helen's success in working with down and out men.

When I was in college in New York, I had a friend who came from the South Bronx (who was in school on scholarship). After I went with him to visit his family one weekend, I can say from firsthand experience that ... Read More

Rating:

- This Sister Donned a Habit -- But Retained Her Old Habits
"Sister Helen" is a superb documentary about a rigid, intolerant, foul mouthed, bitter, oblate (civilian) nun who runs a shelter for drunks and dopers in a very rundown neighborhood in the south Bronx. All but one of the 21 residents are gutter drunks/addicts. Robert, the only middle class representative - he had a real job, house, and even a BMW - regrets she died before he could tell her off. Why?

Robert, like six of the residents, was on parole. He complained that Helen wielded a huge stick over him and constantly threatened to turn him in if he didn't cow-tow to her. In an "extras" interview he said Helen ran the center to compensate for the deaths of the three men in her life - her husband and her two boys. The husband was an alcoholic who died of a heart attack at 55. One boy died of a heroin overdose and the other was stabbed to death at 15. Helen was left with one daughter, who she abandoned ... Read More

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