Recovering Irma

journey

Driving through the eye of the storm. Using around the clock cinema verite recording, Recovering Irma will follow Sandra and Lorenzo as they trade their skateboards for a Ford Escape and embark on an emotional road trip from California, across Arizona and New Mexico, and to the family's original home in El Paso, Texas - along the way piecing together the forgotten pieces of Irma's life, bonding with other victims and survivors, and getting Lorenzo the help he needs.

"Every time I think of my mother, I think only of that day, June 5th, 1995," reveals Sandra. "My mother was an incredible, honest, smart, and giving woman," recalls Sandra. "Every day was a gift to her. I can't honor her life if all I think about is her death."

The film tracks Sandra as she struggles to connect with and understand the places Irma loved most. "When I was little, the only time there was peace in our family was on road trips. For some reason, our open road adventures relieved my father's demons. They were our best times. I'm hoping that by revisiting those places, I can replace the memories of my mother's death with memories of her life."

Sandra and Lorenzo touch down at national monuments, spiritual sites, and Native American grounds where Irma taught her children history on the terracotta back roads of the American Southwest. The significance of the places they visit will be demonstrated through artfully-restored home movies, historical film footage, photographs, and family interviews.

Everyday, three women and one man are murdered by an intimate partner in the United States.* Sandra's filmed interviews with other survivors they meet along the way - brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, husbands, and wives, all on their own roads to recovery from family-on-family murder - raise the message of this film well beyond the limits of the Salas family. These near-strangers become fast friends - providing comfort, friendship and connection for Sandra, but also an alarming reminder to Lorenzo of the legacy he will leave behind if he doesn't change.

Recovering Irma's extensive outreach, education and internet campaign will provide resources for people like those featured in the film to connect with other survivors, get help, and - with support and treatment - begin to put back the pieces of their own lives.

Sandra, Lorenzo, and the film's other character - the open road - all exist at the dramatic intersection of pain and promise. Each day of their cinematic adventure will reveal heartache, anger, humor, surprise, love, and transformation but - above all - the desire to create a future as bright as the one Irma both believed in and deserved.

* Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003. Bureau of Justice Statistics, Intimate Partner Violence in the U.S. 1993-2004, 2006.