TEXAS
TCU Magazine
By Saedra Pinkerton
Escorted by officials into the high-security prison in Huntsville, Texas, documentary filmmaker Lisa Freberg '85 was far from the career she set out to claim when she left TCU with a radio-TV-film degree.
She had created a dream résumé after graduation, making commercials for corporate giants Nike, Budweiser and McDonald's. She established herself in the Dallas market, then made the producer's quintessential leap, heading west to Los Angeles where her career flourished.
It was Freberg's sister, a California attorney, and a beleaguered young client she was helping who inspired Freberg to focus on a radically different genre. The decision would involve a heartbreaking journey into the lives of sexually exploited boys -- and into the minds of the Catholic priests who hurt them.
Freberg's sister took on her first abused client in 1997, years before the priest abuse scandal hit the national media. Since attorney-client privilege prevented her sister from discussing the case, Freberg turned to the court record to learn more.
"When I read it, I wept," she remembers. "The priest was a really sick man. And the leadership of the church didn't do anything to help him or the victim. I thought, ‘This needs to be exposed.' "
Posted by kshaw at March 31, 2005 08:46 AM