5 people. 33 years.
What the Hell Happened
Tickets available for October 18 and 25 screenings
Synopsis
At 22, we all had a plan. Some stuck to it. Some got knocked off course.
None of us knew how hard it was going to be.
In 1992, five college friends were filmed with a borrowed VHS camera, each voicing their dreams for the future: an artist, a young mother, a dropout, a math graduate stuck in fast food, and another grappling with mental health issues. Over the next three decades, their lives unfolded in unexpected directions as they scattered across the country, endured devastating losses, found love, stumbled, and stood up again.
The visuals evolve along with them, shifting from VHS to Hi-8, Super 8, HD, and eventually 4K footage, its texture becoming a living record of time’s passage. Anchored by a haunting image of the Mississippi River in flood, which serves as a reminder of change that cannot be contained, the film becomes an intimate chronicle and meditation on endurance.
Part documentary, part time capsule, part reckoning, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED is a road map for anyone trying to make sense of how we become who we are. By compressing decades into moments, it reveals how small choices become major turning points—and the resilience it takes to navigate the twists and surprises that shape a life.
MATT WILKINS, ELIZA FOX | UNITED STATES, PANAMA, PERU, ARGENTINA, SPAIN, KAZAKHSTAN, ARUBA | 2025 | 91 MIN | ENGLISH
-Philadelphia Film Festival Program
A documentary about life, love and friendship.
Produced and Directed by Matt Wilkins and Eliza Fox.
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Bios
Matt Wilkins
In 1989, a friend and I painted a house in exchange for my uncle’s Super-8 camera. We got ripped off, but I’ve been making films and TV shows 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, 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 narrative features Buffalo Bill’s Defunct and Marrow.
Our films have played Seattle International Film Festival, Portland Film Festival, Cinequest, Italian TV RAI Uno, Cinematexas, The Smithsonian Institute and won a Judges Award at the NW Film and Video Festival from Simpson’s creator Matt Groening. I was commissioned to make a short film by MTV that played at Sundance, called McMullen’s Machines. I am currently finishing my first feature documentary, What the Hell Happened, about the lives of 5 people over 34 years.
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.
