The Film

Into the Storm began with a question I could not answer: How could a family filled with so much love, laughter and connection also be shaped by violence?

In 1995, my father killed my mother and then himself. When I began filming my family, I thought I was trying to understand what had happened. But as I gathered memories from my siblings, relatives and family friends, the story became more complicated. We had experienced the same family differently. Memories contradicted one another, and things I thought I understood became less certain.

Over time, the filmmaking itself became an investigation, not only into my parents and their relationship, but into what families carry from one generation to another. I began to understand that I could not go backward and change what happened. I could not heal my parents for them. What I could do was become conscious of what had been handed to me and take responsibility for my own healing.

That realization became the heart of the film.

Across generations, we inherit more than our histories. We inherit ways of loving, surviving, protecting ourselves and sometimes hurting one another. But those patterns are not inevitable. Awareness gives us the possibility of healing, and healing gives us the possibility of choosing differently.

At a moment when the world can feel increasingly divided, I believe there is something radical in beginning where we stand. Inside ourselves. Inside our families. Inside the histories we have inherited.

Into the Storm is my family’s story, but my hope is that it reaches beyond us. Healing, like trauma, can move across generations. When we interrupt what has been handed down, we have the possibility of changing not only what we inherit, but what we pass on.

Sandy Salas
Director, Into the Storm