Take Care
Synopsis: 24 hours. Dagmara, a Polish nurse, works the day shift. Analyn, a Filipina nurse, works the night shift. The two care-workers, who barely interact outside of their weekly handover, must come together to face insurmountable challenges; being understaffed, underfunded, and having their competence challenged by the son of a resident. Set against a backdrop of brewing tension and anti-immigrant sentiment - over the course of two days and one night, Take Care shows the quiet revelations that can occur in a care home.
Director Biography - Katharine Stocker
Kathy is a filmmaker and filmworker based in London.
TAKE CARE is her first non-student short film. It was selected as one of three short films that the BBC Drama chose to fund in 2022, as part of their Visual Development Fund. It was produced by Rosie Litterick, who is a community arts practitioner and sits on the board of Capital Age Arts.
Kathy works in development & production - she has most recently been a Development Executive at Hera Pictures, and before that she worked on the Wes Anderson feature films ASTEROID CITY and THE WONDERFUL STORY OF HENRY SUGAR, as well as UK indie feature films LIVING, MOTHERING SUNDAY and THE LAST TREE.
Director Statement
TAKE CARE was based on an interview conducted with the manager of my grandparents' care home in January 2020, right before the pandemic.
It is inspired by the tension that exists in coastal and rural communities in England, populations which tended to vote against the citizenship of foreign workers in the Brexit vote of 2016, yet which rely on migrant care-workers to tend to their ageing parents and loved ones.
England is not alone in having a care home crisis; understaffed, underfunded, and with an increasingly ageing population. This crisis existed before the pandemic, and was exacerbated and put to the forefront of the public consciousness during it.
TAKE CARE explores the tension that rises between two migrant care-workers - one from Poland, one from the Philippines - and how they confront the prejudice of the son of a resident, as they both tend to his dying father.The film explores themes of isolation vs. community; how they are inherent to ageing and immigration, which both involve moving away from a familiar home, trying to create a new one.
Though a slice-of-life dramatic narrative, the film has moments of levity; of humour and heartbreak within the community, to create an authentic, empathetic world. It is set in the pastel-decorated world of the care home, curated to provide cheer for its residents, as well as helping navigation and make furniture stand out enough to be recognised. But the garish and gaudy colour palette sometimes only exacerbates a sense of loneliness, of not quite fitting in. This visual contradiction between the colourful home and its inhabitants complements the delicate balance of celebrating the work of carers and the lives of older people, while also pointing out setbacks that the sector is facing. This film is a tribute to the hard work, humanity, dedication and professionalism of the staff of my grandparents' care home, who provide incredible support in spite of the deep-seated problems our neglected care system faces from years of insufficient funding.