Biography
Helen Whitney, an Oscar-nominated, Emmy and Peabody award-winning film producer, director, and writer, has been a prolific creator of documentaries and feature films. Her compelling subjects have encompassed youth gangs, presidential candidates, the McCarthy era, mental illness, Pope John Paul II, Great Britain’s class system, homosexuality, and photographer Richard Avedon. She has collaborated with actors such as Lindsay Kraus, Austin Pendleton, David Straithern, Brenda Fricker, Teresa Wright, and Estelle Parsons.
Throughout her career, Whitney has maintained a strong interest in spiritual journeys, beginning with her documentary The Monastery, a 90-minute ABC special about the oldest Trappist community in the Americas. She followed this with a three-hour Frontline documentary for PBS, John Paul II: The Millennial Pope, and in 2007 produced The Mormons, a four-hour PBS series exploring the depth, complexities, and controversies of the Mormon faith. After the September 11 attacks, she created Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero, a two-hour documentary examining how Americans’ religious beliefs and doubts were challenged and transformed by the spiritual aftermath of 9/11. This film has aired annually since its debut in 2002 and was a PBS featured presentation on both the 1st and 10th anniversaries of the attacks.
Her four-hour PBS series Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate explored the power, limits, and, in rare instances, the dangers of forgiveness through emblematic stories ranging from personal betrayal to genocide. Filming took place across the United States and in countries including South Africa, Germany, and Rwanda. Forgiveness aired on PBS in 2011 and motivated Whitney to author a book of the same name, featuring a foreword by the Dalai Lama.
Whitney’s work has earned her an Academy Award nomination, the Humanitas Prize, the Emmy, the DuPont-Columbia Journalism Award, the Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Journalism, the Directors Guild Award, the Writers Guild Award, and numerous other honors.
