Combining a wealth of recently discovered home movies, video, and written documents with artfully shot contemporary interviews and vérité footage, MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART is a documentary that cracks open a Pandora’s box of unresolved family drama. Originating from filmmaker Cecilia Aldarondo’s suspicion that there was something ugly in her family’s past, the film charts her excavation of the buried family conflict around her uncle Miguel’s death, and her search for Miguel’s partner Robert a generation later. Directed, produced, and written by Cecilia Aldarondo, this documentary is a cautionary tale about the unresolved conflicts wrought by AIDS, and a nuanced exploration of how faith is used and abused in times of crisis.

MEMORIES OF A PENITENT HEART is a co-production of Blaclscrackle Films, LLC, Latino Public Broadcasting, Independent Television Service (ITVS), and American Documentary | POV, with major funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.