Genre
Synopsis
Parents Isabel and Michael recast living in a car as an extended camping trip for their young family of six – watching movies and roasting marshmallows in the car, barbecuing in parks, showering in rest stop bathrooms. Michael makes $3,200/month as a driver for a cooking-oil collection company in San Francisco, where a two-bedroom apartment is $4,500/month. While housing assistance is readily available for single-parent families, people struggling with addiction or domestic violence, Isabel and Michael can’t imagine splitting up their family. When living in the car finally becomes untenable and there’s no hope in moving off housing assistance waitlists, their youngest – Robyn – begins questioning everything. As reality comes crashing down, they find community with anchor-outs – who are living rent free on boats, anchored offshore in Richardson Bay, surrounded by million-dollar mansions along the shore. Juxtaposing Isabel’s real-world perspective as she tries to preserve her children’s innocence with Robyn’s imaginative internal world, we witness the invisibility of family homelessness and their journey to keep their family together at all costs. WHAT YOU’LL REMEMBER is inspired by a true story and birthed from a short documentary that premiered with The New York Times Op-Docs in July 2021.
Bio
Erika Cohn is a two-time Emmy, Peabody and DGA Award-winning filmmaker who Variety recognized as one of 2017’s top documentary filmmakers to watch and was featured in DOC NYC’s 2019 “40 Under 40.” Most recently, Erika directed/produced the New York Times Critics Pick, Emmy Award-winning and Peabody nominated BELLY OF THE BEAST, featuring the 2021 Oscar shortlisted original song, “See What You’ve Done” by Mary J. Blige. This powerful expose´ of human rights abuses in women’s prisons opened in theatres and was broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens series last fall. Her current releases also include The New York Times Op-Docs short film, WHAT YOU’LL REMEMBER, a beautiful portrait of a family who reframes their experience of homelessness. Previously, Erika directed/produced THE JUDGE, a Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated film about the first woman judge appointed to the Middle East’s Shari’a courts, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ 2018 Independent Lens series. She co-directed/produced IN FOOTBALL WE TRUST, an Emmy award-winning, feature documentary about young Pacific Islander men pursuing their dreams of playing professional football, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ 2016 Independent Lens series. She studied at Chapman University and Hebrew University and has degrees in Film Production, Middle East Studies, and Acting Performance.
