Sonja and Mike Gilligan

A display of Emmys, Golden Eagles and International Silver Screen awards are part of Sonja and Mike Gilligan”™s impressive resume as founding members of the Hudson River Film & Video production company.

The couple, who are four years shy of their golden anniversary, started the independent filmmaking venture after moving to Garrison more than three decades ago.

“Initially, we had several partners involved,” said Sonja Gilligan, who is director and writer for the production company. “Eventually, people faded out or moved away; today, it is four of us: myself, Mike and our partners and friends, Michelle and Chuck Clifton.”

The four have combined their amazing talents to produce some equally amazing documentaries for PBS and other broadcasters. Their collaborative efforts have garnered Hudson River Film & Video nine Emmy nominations, five Emmys and a host of other national and international awards for their documentaries.

Some of their body of work includes locally made “Welcome to Dutchess County”; “The Company We Keep,” the story of Rob and Emilie Dyson; and several documentaries on West Point and the Hudson River that have drawn acclaim.  Other works speak to a broader national audience, including “Christina”™s World,” narrated by Julie Harris and winner of four Emmys; and “Metro: Manhattan Chowder,” a video history of New York”™s eccentric side, narrated by Colleen Dewhurst.

The company has just completed the second segment of a series focusing on prison inmates: men and women who ended up behind bars, their lives inside the walls and their eventual re-entry into mainstream society. Certainly, it”™s a subject that can be grim, gritty and all too real not just for the filmmakers, but for their subjects and their families who wait outside the walls.

The Gilligans”™ interest in Santos ”“ Spanish-inspired carvings, paintings and figures ”“ began after a terrible personal loss for the couple: their only child, Patrick, was diagnosed with a brain tumor at the age of 19. After five years of valiantly fighting to save their son, Sonja and Mike Gilligan laid him to rest in January 1990.  The couple went on a sojourn to New Mexico, which sparked their passion for the native religious artwork of the area.

 

 

It was there they first visited Mesa Verde, “a tremendously spiritual place,” said Sonja Gilligan. “I truly felt we were standing on sacred ground.” It was on that trip they discovered an 18^th-century Santos crucifix in a Sante Fe shop.  “I can”™t articulate what drew us to it, but somehow it brought my son close to me,” said Gilligan. “Mike and I brought it home.” Thus was the beginning of the couple”™s now extensive collection of Santos-inspired artwork.

“It is not so much the Christianity the works reflect ”“ ”˜Santos”™  means saints, and the people who carve and paint these works are called ”˜santeros”™ ”“ it is the spirituality you can feel these artists put into the work that goes beyond one religion but embraces the entire  human spirit. Some santoeros have used the most unusual materials ”“ metal from an old can, for example ”“ and turned them into works of art that have a spiritual life of their own.”

Perhaps it is the central figure of the santeros”™ work that has drawn the Gilligans to the 400-year-old-art: Christ was his mother”™s only son, whom she lost; so have the Gilligans lost an only son. Said Sonja: “And there is not a minute of the day that goes by that he is not here with us. We were very blessed to have him as long as we did. That”™s how we like to think of it. He had a chance to see some of life and we had him for 25 years. He actually told his friends he liked his parents. Of course, we didn”™t hear about that until Patrick was gone. We figured he was out knocking us like most teenagers do. It was a good feeling to hear that from his friends that he genuinely liked us and liked being around us. He worked with us in the studio since he was 12. Really, a remarkable person and terribly missed every day.”

While the Gilligans have slowed down collecting Santos, Sonja Gilligan and partner Michelle Clifton are turning up the heat on grant writing for the next installment of the prison documentary. They hope to follow up “Manhood & Violence: Fatal Peril” and “Jail Talk” with an episode focusing on life once inmates are released into society.

And when the Gilligans feel the need for respite from their intense film work, they can take comfort in their collection of Santos and in the wild turkeys that regularly visit their yard, blissfully ignored by their Great Dane, Carlos.  “There”™s a real sense of peace here,” Sonja says. “I don”™t think we will find it anywhere else. And our memories of our son ”“ bringing him home from the hospital, watching him chase the wild turkeys ”“ all that is here, too.” Perhaps it”™s that combination of ingredients that give the Gilligans the inspiration and drive to create their masterpieces on film.