5 people. 32 years.
What the Hell Happened
A black man with dreams of being an artist, a white woman who has a child at the age of 22, a poor high school dropout from a broken home, a white man with college educated parents who works at McDonald’s, and a person with a family history of addiction and depression.
These were our friends in college, and after we graduated in 1992, we interviewed them for posterity, thinking it might be interesting to see how their lives turn out. This is what happened to them three decades later.
WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED explores these five lives: how their starting point impacted their ending point; how they changed and how they stayed the same; whether they achieved their goals; whether they found love or happiness; if they were able to climb out of poverty; what they learned, and what they found to be the most important things in life.
Here are the thoughts, hopes, dreams, disappointments, successes, failures, mistakes, victories, losses, and great loves of five Americans over 34 years.
A documentary about life, love and friendship.
Produced and Directed by Matt Wilkins and Eliza Fox.
Bios
Eliza Fox
I started this project when I took a class at public access in Iowa City in 1992, then checked out a VHS camera and microphone. Back then, before cell phones, pictures were taken mostly on vacations and special occasions like birthdays, and it was even more rare to shoot videos. There weren’t a lot of camcorders around and most people were not used to being filmed, so many were reluctant to participate. There were other friends that I really wished we would have gotten, but they were too shy to be interviewed. In the end, we have these people, and I really appreciate their bravery and honesty.
Over the years, I performed in, shot, wrote and produced several short films including The Gods Looked Down and Laughed, Interior Latex, Fart Perfume, The Communicators, three narrative features Buffalo Bill’s Defunct, Marrow, The Things We Tell the Ones We Love, and now a feature documentary — What the Hell Happened. Full filmography at IMDB.
Matt Wilkins
I made my first film in 1989 and have been making things ever since. I’ve been a cook, delivery driver, videographer, and producer. I’ve worked as a Field Producer, Story Producer, Supervising Producer and Writer on Hoarders, Inside Homicide, "Yard Crashers, Mountain Men, My 600 Pound Life, Twisted Love, Twisted Sisters, Fog Of Murder, Biography: WWE Legends, Violent Minds: Killers On Tape, among others. Full filmography at IMDB.
Counting public access skits, I’ve made over 30 short films and 3 narrative features. In one sweet stretch, I received 16 grants in 14 years from the Seattle Arts Commission, the King County Arts Commission, Artist Trust, The Allen Foundation for the Arts, 4Culture and the NW Film Forum to make several shorts and my first two features. I am currently finishing my first feature documentary, What the Hell Happened, about the lives of 5 people over 34 years.
