This powerful documentary follows two generations of the Santiago family of Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Around the same time that Cisco and Stingray Santiago became leaders of the notorious Assassinators gang, Sister Mary Paul and Sister Geraldine started a unique social service agency called The Center for Family Life. They had the radical yet simple idea that they could strengthen this troubled community by supporting families like the Santiagos. Slowly, gang leaders began turning to the center as an alternative to the streets. Twenty years later, Sister Geraldine is still working with the same Santiago family.

The film opens with sixteen-year-old Luis and his gang breaking the law on the streets of Sunset Park. Luis quits his job, drops out of school, impregnates his girlfriend, threatens his mother and step father with a knife, and is thrown out his home. Luis’s fourteen-year-old sister Elena becomes pregnant soon after, stops attending school, and resorts to violence in the home and on the streets. The film chronicles Sister Geraldine’s intervention, including the painful arguments and moving counseling sessions of an embattled family struggling to remain intact. Sister Geraldine’s selfless energy, in the face of terminal illness, ultimately enables this troubled family to overcome its differences and become a stronger, more cohesive unit.

CINE Gold Eagle, 2001
Cleveland International Film Festival, 2001