~ Elizabeth Herrera
After 15 years of bouncing from unsafe apartments to couches to shelters to the streets, a young family moves into their first stable home during the pandemic. In WHAT YOU’LL REMEMBER, parents Elizabeth and David, write a letter to their children, recasting their experience of living in a car while waiting for housing assistance as an extended camping trip—sleeping in parks, showering at the beach, dressing for school in gas station bathrooms. Intimately filmed by Elizabeth, this short film plays as a love poem, expressing the parents deep belief that family can create home when there is no house.
Confronting the American dream, this film examines the stories we’re told about success, family and housing. I hope it catalyzes audience reflection on the stories we’ve all been told…how life was framed, the splendor of imagination, the loss of childhood innocence, the meaning of home and the stories we tell ourselves now. In the midst of a pandemic, WHAT YOU’LL REMEMBER plays as an offering – a tribute to resilience and creativity in a time when so much is out of our control.