Nuns, Miracles, Faith, and Flight Attendants Collide -- or is it collude? -- in THE BLINKING MADONNA & OTHER MIRACLESThis warm and funny film combines personal narrative, old movie clips, and documentary news footage to tell the story of a recovering Catholic who finds her world turned upside down when she unintentionally captures a "miracle" on film.
The adult Beth, enamored of her larger-than-life Italian relatives, moved to Boston's Italian North End. Caught between the incoming yuppies and old neighborhood diehards, Beth was an "Italian wannabe" -- flashing her Italian heritage (from her mother's side) for all it's worth, much to the bemusement of her "real" Italian neighbors. A filmmaker, Beth began making films chronicling the neighborhood feasts and slowly (after nearly a decade!) was accepted by the neighborhood as one of their own, albeit unmarried and unlucky in love.
| ||
|
|
||
As the on-screen narrator of her amazing adventure, Beth begins by filling us in
on her upbringing as a young Catholic in an idyllic 50's suburb of Boston.
Surrounded by modern "how do you solve a problem like Maria" nuns and
obsessed with the hair-raising lives of the saints, Beth was a good Catholic
girl who prayed fervently -- hoping that the Virgin Mary would appear to her
just like She did to pious young girls in Hollywood movies. But like the rest of
her generation, the pivotal events of the '60s led Harrington to become
"the quintessential fallen-away Catholic." 
Recently dumped and unemployed, Beth concentrated on videotaping the annual
Feast for her neighborhood friends. But later, when the old guys at the local
social club sat down to watch her tape, there it was -- a miracle! Their
beloved statue of the Madonna del Soccorso had blinked -- a sign if there ever
was one. Beth is faced with a dilemma. She knows immediately that a technical
glitch is the culprit, but who was she to discount a miracle -- especially one
so embraced by her friends and neighbors? Soon she finds herself in a media
vortex of newspapers and nightly news -- a real circus, until she realizes
"Just as bad things happened to me that I couldn't control, so too, good
things could happen that were out of my control -- like the goodwill, attention,
and humor generated by the blink." A vibrant story full of warmth and
wonder, THE BLINKING MADONNA reminds us to keep our minds and hearts open to
life's unexpected miracles, great and small.