Beyond Belief

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley are two ordinary moms living their American Dream until both husbands are killed by terrorists. Rather than turning inwards, grief compels them to travel to Afghanistan and help empower Afghan widows whose lives have been ravaged by decades of war, poverty and oppression – factors they consider to be root causes of terrorism.  As Susan and Patti make the courageous journey from their comfortable suburban neighborhoods to the most desperate Afghan villages, they discover a powerful bond with each other, an unlikely kinship with widows halfway around the world, and a profound way to move beyond tragedy.

The title of Beth Murphy's heart-rending activist documentary Beyond the 11th (also known as Beyond Belief) refers to 9/11, and her two chief subjects are Patti Quigley and Susan Retik, a pair of American women who lost their husbands in the September 2001 World Trade Center attacks, while each was pregnant with a daughter. Though unspeakably moved by the outpouring of support they received, Susan and Patti soon became aware of the comparative lack of assistance for Afghani widows, who number over 50,000 in the city of Kabul alone. Determined to ease the circumstances, and sensing a deep-seated emotional bond with these victims of tragedy, the American women launched their own grass-roots fundraiser for this subset of the Afghani populace: a 275-mile bicycle run from Ground Zero to Boston on September 11, 2004. Their efforts did not stop there, however – Quigley and Retik ultimately felt moved enough by the plight of the Afghani women to jet off to Afghanistan themselves, and assist the bereft one-on-one, thus fighting terror in a most unusual and deeply felt manner. Murphy recounts Quigley and Retik's story, from 9/11 through their voyages to the Middle East.

Bonus: Interview With Producer/Director Beth Murphy, Trailer