While she prepares for church one morning, an elderly woman reflects on her tumultuous relationship with her son-in-law, a Vietnam War veteran, and her daughter and granddaughters, who she couldn’t protect from his violence.

When a mother's memory begins to deteriorate, her daughter catalogs her memories, both the ones she does and doesn't remember.

Four women–a retired dancer enacting an old dance, a grandmother preparing a birthday dinner for her family, her granddaughter participating in a genetics study, and a researcher quantifying the burden of old memories–all unite under the combined weight of their war-burdened pasts in the contemporary United States.

A woman struggles with shaky faith and emotional isolation from her son, which intensify when she goes to see him in prison. After one particularly difficult visit, she faces her fears with her brother’s help.

Four women bending together after a traumatic experience

During her conversations with her mother, a daughter often muses about the past, both politically and personally. She discovers more about her mother but also about the world around her as she observes life and its souvenirs.

A man looks back on his father-in-law's life after he passes away, thinking of the many jobs he held and his military service.

A young boy tries to figure out why his father wakes up in the middle of the night to sit in their dark kitchen, alone with his thoughts.

In San Francisco, a Chinese grandmother teaches her granddaughter how to pickle the memories she no longer wants to carry with her, much to her daughter’s chagrin.

After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.