From Executive Producer Angela Bassett:
NO SHORTCUTS TO CHANGE - The Essential Campaign, a project of The League, presents No Shortcuts to Change, a short film that follows Ramona (Franceli Chapman) a homecare aid who suddenly meets her Fairy God-Person (Sherri Shepherd) who is trying to "change her life for the better" by tempting her with magical shortcuts. Ramona ends up not falling for the high-jinx and tricks because she realizes that she doesn’t need magic to create real change. (4 min, 2021, Director: Adrian Rojas Elliot) #CareIsEssential #CareCantWait
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COVER/AGE - Confronting the healthcare exclusion of elderly undocumented immigrants in California, two immigrant leaders (one a caregiver, the other a policy advocate) champion the movement to expand healthcare coverage for everyone in the Golden State. (25 min, 2019, Director: Set Hernandez Rongkilyo)
LONG DISTANCE - A Filipino couple in Calgary, Alberta perseveres through a long-distance relationship redolent of the many years they spent apart in the past. Before, international borders separated them. Now, a virus. While Roderick, a Cargill meat plant worker, recovers in the hospital from a COVID-induced stroke, his wife, Norie, summons the strength to support her family. Set against the backdrop of COVID-19 outbreaks among migrant workers across Canada. (28 min, Canada, 2021, Director: Kiana Rawji)
LIMBO - A true-fiction short following the story of Witold, a young, Polish Londoner whose humanity is blunted by the demands of his digital boss, laying bare the hardship of the job of a care worker at this poignant time of the global pandemic.
Under-trained and underpaid, Witold speeds from home to home on his bicycle, feeling the enormity of his responsibility as he enters hidden worlds to administer care to a delicate but dynamic assortment of elderly men living alone.
Required to use a mobile app which enforces his schedule, Witold’s attempts at connecting with his ‘service users’ are constantly interrupted. He and his wards are united in their isolation and inevitably begin to bond - until his bike is stolen, and his malevolent schedule unravels.
Witold’s elderly clients are played by vulnerable men who receive care at home and are not actors. Unbeknownst to cast and crew, the first cases of COVID-19 were recorded as filming commenced. ‘Limbo’ reveals the acute loneliness of those most vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic, and its devastating real-time implications.
This story is the narrative debut of Emmy nominated writer and director Lotje Sodderland (My Beautiful Broken Brain, Netflix), herself once a recipient of vital care. (19 min, U.K., 2020, Director: Lotje Sodderland)