THE ROOTS WE CARRY is filmed in an intimate vérité style, moving between the energy of group therapy, art, theater and play and the children’s lives at home. We follow them into crowded Northeast Philadelphia apartment complexes and sparsely furnished homes, where their homework and artwork made at the center and with their mothers become some of the most personal signs of the new lives they are creating here. Visits with seniors bring a different warmth and calm.

The children’s own artwork is central to the film’s visual language. With their permission, drawings and paintings are animated to help them tell their stories and reveal memories and emotions that are difficult to express in words.

Reflective interviews with children, seniors and staff are more stylized and private, often surrounded by artwork created together over the three years. The result is intimate and cinematic, grounded in their art, their voices and the world they allow us to enter.