Thanks for joining us for this screening of Love Thy Neighbor, a documentary produced right here at the University of Florida's College of Journalism and Communications.

Stick around after the screening, and we'll have a talkback session with some of the production team.

What I really like to do for fun is just, like, hang out with friends and work on music.

You don't get much free time to just relax, unfortunately.

So lunch and plaza time is always really appreciated.

Study a bit afterwards, go to the eatery and afterwards keep studying and going to the gym or playing tennis with some friends, or going partying.

Religious sis- Sisters?

Like sorority group?

Nope.

What do you mean?

- No I've seen Sound of Music.

I know it's a - it's a pretty hard life to live so I think that going into the sisterhood, especially like nuns, like, that's a very significant, like, jump and commitment that you have to take that not the normal average person would do.

I think it's such a beautiful question to - to ask.

Like, what is our life like?

Safety first kids.

Yeah.

Oh.

Did you get that shot?

Oh.

Lord have mercy.

In the name of the father and the son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Lord, be our guide and our protector in the journey we're about to take.

Watch over us.

Protect us from accidents.

Keep us free from harm on body and soul.

Lord, support us with your grace when we are tired.

Help us to be patient in any trouble that may come our way.

Keep us always mindful of your presence and love.

So I used to live in Buckman.

That's one of the halls I lived in.

And it was the best because it was right next to church so I could, like, just go from Buckman to St.

A.’s and then I'd have, like, just enough time to get to the J school, and Yeah, it was it was pretty nice.

My name is Sister Tonia of the Heart of Jesus Borsellino.

And I am a Mercedarian Sister of the Blessed Sacrament.

When I got to college, my plans kind of fell apart.

I didn't get into the programs I wanted for theater, and, you know, just financial aid and all that didn't kind of work in the way that I had imagined.

And so I, I said I would go to UF, because I really liked the campus, and I knew it had a good broadcast journalism program, and that was the closest thing to theater.

So that's when I started, and I had like, you know, an internship of my dreams and, you know, job offer all of these things.

And I got to senior year and I was like, Lord, I have no idea what it is that you want.

I could be married and have, you know, a wonderful family, or I could, you know, become a sister and be your bride.

I remember writing something for an assignment, like, where do you see yourself in five years?

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

And I remember writing that I was going to get married and have children, so I didn't - I didn't see this, you know, coming when I was 18.

I said, Lord, if you're calling me to religious life, show me the community.

So one day, I'm doing a search online, and I'm actually looking for a community that has in its title, Blessed Sacrament.

So I come across the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

I click and I, you know, I see they have a habit, I see they have community life, a solid prayer life and, ministry life, all of those things.

And so, I was drawn to them.

I've been involved with the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament for about four years.

I entered with a community on August 1st, 2021.

When I was in college, I was invited by a religious sister on a retreat that happened to be with sisters leading it.

And Sister Lucia asked me, just like Megan, have you ever considered religious life?

And I looked at her and I said, no.

And it was just this, this, oscillation of fear and joy.

I was just like, just like, wow, that would be so beautiful.

No, no, no, but it would be so good - No!

And so I was, you know, those are my first moments of hearing the potential call and then discerning in college with different communities just, very keenly hearing the Lord say my junior year, “Not yet.” I remember one day I was just driving and I was listening to the Catholic radio station, and they were talking about an interview with Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and they asked her, how does a girl know that she has a vocation?

And she simply said, “A girl knows.” As simple as that, a girl knows.

And when I heard that, it really resonated with me.

I thought, that's me.

Like, I have this feeling like I'm pretty sure I'm being called kind of these two separate worlds of I'm really involved in the studio and, you know, radio, TV, meteorology, even for a time.

And I'm like getting really involved in the campus ministry.

And I feel like I'm being torn apart in these two different ways.

And the priest at the time, the pastor was like, you know, you could do Catholic media, right?

I was like, what?

And so I started looking into that.

Parishioners are able to get to know the sisters on a deeper and more personal level here at St.

Augustine Catholic Church.

But once the sisters step outside these church doors, they find themselves at the edge of Midtown, ministering to people who might not have seen a sister before.

They're Catholic right?

Okay.

Like they dress a certain way.

Yeah, I've - I honestly didn't know that they had nuns because I. You know, I really I used to live like, two blocks behind there, and I passed, like, the little, like, Catholic thing every day.

And there's, like, a convent.

I'm not sure.

I met her when she was in university.

I met her, and, I don't know, but.

I said, this is going to be mine.

Really?

I mean, mine means in the community.

I would describe life in the convent as going back to Scripture.

Like in the acts of the apostles, where it talks about them living with one mind and one heart and and putting everything that they are and, and do and earn together and living as one.

After our morning prayer marathon, in the convent, we usually arrive around 1:00, and I like to check my emails and messages to just to make sure I didn't miss anything when we were away.

We oversee different committees here at the student center, so getting to meet with them, getting to know, you know, what are your events, what are your hopes and dreams for this year?

How is your own prayer life?

Is there anything that we can help you with?

How are you doing?

Oh, missed it.

The evangelical vow of poverty pretty much to be poor is to be poor like the poor Christ.

And so by not having excessive material things, we are able to focus more on Jesus.

Chastity is we give our complete self to Jesus.

So we choose Jesus Christ as our spouse.

And then obedience is following the footsteps of Jesus Christ, who was obedient to the father until death.

That is our desire to be completely obedient to God, and particularly that takes form for us through our superiors.

So through them leading us and us obeying them, that's how our obedience takes place.

What are the sacrifices of everyday getting up early, you know, even especially me, you know, it's hard, but the sacrifice has to be there every day.

See, it has no sacrifice.

I mean, it's like something is missing.

So I don't know that I've ever met a non joyful sister.

That's like, that speaks volumes.

Witnessing to the fullness of life that religious life offers.

It's been such a blessing to be here among the, the university students and, the community here at Saint Augustine Parish.

I've been blessed with everyone's presence.

It's also a blessing to be here as a sister.

Just the opportunities to be a spiritual mother here for all those that are around me is, is a blessing for me.

Being back at UF has done a lot for me personally, but then also my ministry.

And so being in a college town, I think it gives you a great awareness of the need, how this generation is growing up or the ways in which they struggle, right, the struggles that they face, the ways in which I can pray for them or speak the Lord's heart to them.

I went through very similar things of being away from home for the first time, or wanting to do my own thing and experiencing the party scene or what you know, the world says will make you happy.

I've experienced that, and I know what that's like.

And so my heart is not looking down upon that because I've experienced it.

Welcome back.

We hope you enjoyed the screening of Love Thy Neighbor.

My name is Houston Wells.

I am a senior lecturer here in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, and I'm joined here in the studio today with several members of the production team of that documentary.

So first, I'd like to introduce our team here and this is three of four members of the team.

Michael D'Alessio, your role was director of photography.

That's right.

All right.

And then, Sarah Leon, you were the director of this project?

Yes.

And Natalia Irizarry, you were the beloved editor - of this project.

- That’s correct, yes.

So, I've got some questions for y'all.

And, maybe we'll see.

Maybe some will be specific to individuals, and we can, we can just respond to those as the spirit so moves you.

Sounds good.

So this is a story about, ostensibly about the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament.

And where did the idea for this documentary come from?

So after our first class, when we were told to figure out ideas, I was just kind of coming back and I was walking around the community center that you see and is behind the Saint Augustine church.

And I was just sitting there and then one of the sisters walks by, and I hadn't recognized her.

And so I was it just kind of struck me.

I was like, that's an interesting person walking by.

And so I kind of introduced myself.

And then I quickly got on to that, we’re in a documentary class.

And as we were talking, I was like, wait a second.

This would be kind of a fascinating thing to, delve into.

And so next class, I just pitched it to the rest of the team, and they seemed to like it.

Yeah.

No, I thought it was such a cool idea, and I was really fascinated by it, and I thought it would make a good story.

So I was really happy to take on the role of the director for this and make a really cool documentary.

Well, I do remember that first day when you came in and you said, did you know that there is a convent near the University of Florida?

And of course, I know.

Now, once it was pointed out, I was like, of course this is, you know, Saint Augustine across the street.

But in the moment, I was just I was like, where is this?

Describe this to me.

And you were describing the location.

I'm like, I don't I don't know what you're talking about.

And then it was very obviously right there across the street.

So how did your initial idea when you first conceptualized this?

It was just a germ of an idea, that idea of what you thought the story was going to be.

How does that compare to what it ended up being?

I think, you know, I was looking back when we were in like the final stages of editing our documentary, I was looking back at our visual treatment that we made before we even started production.

And I actually, I did notice that a lot of the original ideas that we had wanted to include into the doc kind of made it in some way.

So I thought that was really cool that we were able to kind of keep that story.

But a lot of things did change.

And there was, of course, the fact that we didn't know the sisters yet.

Of course, their stories that we kind of made up in the beginning changed.

And so I think that was probably the biggest thing was like, what is their story?

But it was really cool figuring that out and finding it.

Yeah.

Thankfully, we had a pretty good teacher to, show us what a visual treatment is and why that's important.

Extremely important.

Well, it's certainly it's frustrating at the beginning because you you have just an idea of an idea and you don't know the characters.

You don't know their paths.

Obviously.

But that's I think that's part of the - it's a little chaotic, it's a little scary, but it's part of the fun to discovering what that story is and how that matches what your vision was and how it's different than what your vision was.

So you chose a project that required you to film inside of a convent.

Were there certain challenges associated with that sort of production?

Well, just from a technical standpoint, You don't you can't bring in a bunch of lighting, you know, I mean, we had interviews that we did, but those weren't at the convent itself.

Those were done at the student center.

And so everything at the convent, it's natural lighting or practical lighting.

So you're just going to have to kind of try and make the, at least from the camera point of view, make the best kind of image you can.

The C80s are great for that.

And - but also, of course, just being mindful of the serenity and quietness, trying not to disturb the sisters while you have this giant camera set and like, boom mic, you know, right in front of them.

But thankfully they were just - they're just such great people that they were very easy to film and, and they were welcoming and it was very natural.

So those are some of the challenges for, from the production.

Yeah.

I agree with the space and trying not to disrupt their daily life because we were trying to just be like you know, we're just tagging along basically.

I do remember the boom mic kind of hitting some things, but yeah it was okay.

It made them laugh.

So and they were really great about it.

Like letting us use their space and, you know, kind of become a little bit of part of their lives.

So I think that was awesome.

Go ahead.

Yeah.

I was just going to say, Sister Heart, one of the sisters who went to University of Florida, you know, being a well, telecommunications major, now media production, was just - was very understanding from that standpoint where she's familiar with, with how a lot of this goes.

And so, yeah, just an additional help to the production.

I think one thing that really shines in, in this project is the the feeling of authenticity and the fact that, that you had to in order to get that level of access, you had to show a level of respect.

And I think that that comes through, and part of that is having sort of a nimble footprint.

Some of the interviews and sit down interviews were lovely, but that's not really the beating heart of this story.

And so I commend you on how you how you captured that and sort of found the middle ground there between the technology and, and respect for the story there.

Was there a moment during the production where you feel like things shifted?

So in the production side of things, was there something that changed the documentary?

Well, when we were kind of looking for, you know, archival footage, because we found out that, Sister Heart, Tonia Borsellino, was a student here, journalism student here at the J school.

Telecom student.

We kind of found out that she has a YouTube channel.

And so I had a lot of enjoyment just going through her YouTube videos and watching them.

But like at the very - one of the very first ones is just her newsreel as a student that, you know, she would presumably use for applying to jobs as a reporter or, or whatever.

So having that and then especially that one clip where she's coming out of the church and, addressing like the students and the church, like doing exactly what we're doing in the documentary, was just a really great point of like to kind of hone in on to - because it is just a good symbol of, of what we were doing.

Got any thoughts on that Natalia?

Yeah.

That was just awesome to find that archival footage because we were like wow.

Like that's our story right there written in the past.

Yeah.

It was just a cool experience to be able to find that and that she shared that with us.

Yeah.

And from an editor - from an editor’s standpoint, any time you have some element that you can bring in that's going to give you a little variety or a little counterpoint to what we're seeing.

Along those lines, I think one - one thing that I, as a viewer of this documentary, one thing I really love, is sort of the - it's a weird way to put it, but like the humanization of what we have, this iconic, you know, this idea, if we're not familiar with what is life in a convent or just dealing with, with nuns who have chosen this lifestyle, to be able to see them as human, as people with a YouTube channel or somebody who had this, you know, these other careers in mind.

And it shifted.

So I love that about it.

Along those lines, how do you balance being respectful to your subjects with crafting a compelling narrative?

I mean, that's on your shoulders right there as a director, right?

Yeah.

You know, I think it is a bit of a challenge, but at the same time, I think going into this documentary, we just wanted to tell their story.

And so I think that was really what helped us, you know, tell their story as best as we could and not try to shift it in any sort of way.

We just wanted to lay it out for an audience.

And of course, make it interesting for them to watch.

But not anything else.

There was no like, oh, this that.

I think for me going into it, I was like, we're kind of just getting a glimpse into their life like a slice of life, sort of.

And I think having that in mind was really helpful.

So when we went to, into the, editing stage, I think like, it just really came together really nicely.

In fact, this leads to like the editorial question, because you are when you are observing somebody's life, when they are giving you this gift of access to their world.

Right?

You gather so much material and then it becomes part of your job to decide.

I mean, obviously this is a collective conversation.

But ultimately it falls to you to decide what stays and what goes.

Can you talk to us about that process Natalia?

Yeah, so it was a very hard process.

I've never edited a documentary before this one.

I had to watch a lot of YouTube videos on how to edit documentaries because I just had no idea how to approach it.

Yeah, it sounds like a terrible teacher.

Yes, obviously.

I just needed, like, more context.

But yeah, once we got the ball rolling, it was like easier to, you know, do the other things like intro, middle part and ending.

But yeah, sifting through just those hours and hours of footage, most of it was unusable, but a good amount was like, you know, those hidden golden pieces that I knew we wanted to include.

And yeah, I was just like sifting through things.

Mhmm Yeah.

No, I agree because I mean I was like sitting next to Natalia while she was editing stuff and there was a lot to go through.

But I think she really pulled out some really great pieces Yeah.

and all that.

I also think, back to the question, thinking about that going into our interviews, I think the questions we came up with also helped us like kind of push forward of like the story we wanted to tell, but also still, like being respectful to the sisters.

And I think that was another major part of, you know, the documentary.

Yeah.

There's just a lot of communication involved both between us and between us and our subjects.

That's like very key to having everything run smoothly and, and also just so you just have a clear next step throughout the whole process.

Mhmm And you did I mean collectively you guys found some moments and it's always - it's amusing, there's a certain irony in the knowledge that, you know everything that went into this, you know what all the available ingredients are and then your viewer does not know what's being left on the cutting room floor, so to speak.

But that's part of the, the craft and the art of what we do.

Well, I have one final question for you guys.

That was lovely by the way.

I love this reflection.

How did that experience of crafting this film, how do you feel like that's impacted you as filmmakers?

You want to take a stab at that?

I was just going to say, you know, just learning a lot of technical things that I just did not know.

I remember calling you a few times to just put out fires with audio.

And I had to like, I don't know what I'm doing.

But with that, also just maintaining the, the stress of the work, but also while you're doing it, being reminded of how gratifying it is and why you're doing it is really important.

Because not only like learning the technical skills of how to do the job, but also you getting to expand your love for it and expand, sort of the, the bigger, larger reason of why you love to make films and why you love to tell stories.

Yeah, yeah.

And coming back to your idea of this being a connection between people, seeing people that we ostensibly are different from, and looking at them and seeing how are there's so much resonance between their lives and our lives.

And I think maybe that's part of the the strength of documentary in general, really storytelling in general, if you think about it.

But yeah, I was absolutely thrilled to see what you guys produced with that.

Well, thank you for joining us for this talkback session after the screening of Love Thy Neighbor.

I want to thank our production team for joining us here in the studio, and I want to thank you for, spending your time with us here at home.