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Carole Mikita ReportingFilm screenings are taking place all over Park City this week, including inside a church. A new documentary takes a look at "The Power of Forgiveness".
"This is a newly-painted mural in a catholic section of Belfast. It remembers six young men who were shot to death in 1972. No one was ever brought to trial for the killings."
From Northern Ireland, to Holocaust survivors, to those who lost loved ones on September 11th, this new documentary looks at the anguish and soul-searching people go through as they approach the idea of forgiveness.
Pastor Jess Louden, Shepherd of the Mountains Lutheran Church, Park City: "I think forgiveness is pretty much at the core of every faith tradition, and it's always radical because the one who is wronged is asked to forgive first."
The film includes people of many religious denominations and it's very secular also, talking about how the idea of forgiveness includes both the mind and the body.
The filmmaker talked with researchers who studied the brains of people bent on revenge and witnessed blood pressure rise when others talked of fear and anger.
Martin Doblmeier, filmmaker, "The Power of Forgiveness": "Forgiveness really is something that helps the body to physically remove a lot of the pressure, the mind, the stress that people are living under all the time. And another level, the soul. There's people who would simply say that in the process of giving up something that they've been holding in for a long time, they felt a relief on their soul."
The film also addresses forgiving oneself, which may be the hardest of all.
Rabbi Josh Aaronson, Temple Har-Shalom, Park City: "Some people manage to do that and I think their stories bear telling. Other people find it much more difficult to do that, that's how I enter the discussion of forgiveness."
In churches, in classrooms, at home the filmmaker hopes this documentary both raises questions and brings answers. “The Power of Forgiveness" has two more screenings at the Park City Community Church Monday and Tuesday at 7pm, followed by interfaith discussions. The film will be shown on PBS this fall.
