The Mayor + The Caretaker

 
   
Two powerful short films that explore contemporary immigration issues in the U.S., The Caretaker and The Mayor are intimate portraits of relationships between recent immigrants, and those who came to the U.S. generations ago.

Awards & Screenings

2012 Cannes Film Festival: Special Screening

2012 Cannes Film Festival: Special Screening (The Caretaker)

Best Short Documentary: Audience Award, 2013 Sebastopol Documentary Film Festiva

Best Short Documentary: Audience Award, 2013 Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (The Mayor)

2013 Ashland Independent Film Festival

2013 Ashland Independent Film Festival (Both)

2014 Tribeca Film Institute Interactive Day

2014 Tribeca Film Institute Interactive Day (Both)

2014 Ellis Island: Special Screening

2014 Ellis Island: Special Screening (Both)

 

 

Best Short Documentary: Audience Award, 2013 Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival

2013 Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (Both)

2014 New York Film Festival

2014 New York Film Festival (Both)

 

2013 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

2013 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (Both)

 

2013 San Diego Latino Film Festival

2013 San Diego Latino Film Festival (The Mayor)

The Caretaker

Synopsis

Runtime: 7 Minutes

Josey's Graduation Portrait of Her in a Cap and Gown
The Caretaker is a short film about the relationship between an immigrant caretaker and an elderly woman in the last months of her life. Joesy, a Fijian immigrant, works long hours providing live-in care for 95-year-old Haru Tsurumoto. Through intimate and quiet scenes, we explore Joesy’s complex relationship with Haru. The two respect one another, because at different times, both have felt like outsiders in the U.S. – Joesy as an undocumented immigrant who fears she could be sent back to Fiji, and Haru as a Japanese American who was sent to the internment camps during World War II.

Character Profiles


 

Josey Gerrish

Josey Gerrish

“As soon as I came here I started caregiving. You go in and make them feel comfortable, like how you‘d want someone to treat you. Then you‘ve got a friend for life.”

Haru Tsurumoto

Haru Tsurumoto

Haru was born in Sonoma County, California, to Japanese immigrant parents. During WWII, anti-Japanese fervor spread across the U.S. and Haru was sent to an internment camp in Poston, AZ, for three years.

The Mayor

Synopsis

Runtime: 10 Minutes

Mario's Family
The Mayor is an intimate portrait of a small-town Southern Republican Mayor and his profound and unexpected connection to a mixed-status family of Mexican immigrants. Paul Bridges, the conservative Republican Mayor of Uvalda, Georgia, speaks fluent Spanish and is integrally connected to the Latino immigrant community in his town. Bridges has been a major part of the Hernandez family’s life for over a decade and many of the members of the family are undocumented. After the State of Georgia adopts harsh anti-immigrant laws that make it a criminal act to drive or house undocumented people, Mayor Bridges stands up for his community and the Hernandez family both at home, and on the National stage.

Character Profiles


 

Mayor Paul Bridges

Paul Bridges

“When I became friends with these people (Latinos) and started to learn their language, the doors just opened up.  I saw that they were family oriented, hard workers, high morals–my eyes were opened, we’re all the same, we’re all equal, we have the same values.”

 

Celeste Hernandez

Celeste Hernandez

“In middle school that’s when it hit me, i’m in a gifted class, no Mexicans, no colored persons, just me, surrounded by white people.  I want to graduate with honors, but in Georgia, you have to have papers to go to college.”

Resources


Download Discussion Guide

This 60-page discussion guide has warm-up activities, discussion questions, and worksheets for both The Caretaker and The Mayor. Also included are activities to create a safe space with your students, address stereotypes and media bias around immigration issues, as well as a guide of how to create and share personal immigrant narratives on the Immigrant Nation story hub.

Watch the Films

The Caretaker (Full Film)


 

 

 

The Mayor (Full Film)


 

 

The Caretaker + The Mayor DVD


The Caretaker + The Mayor DVD Cover and DVD

 

The Caretaker + The Mayor: Two short films on Immigration in the U.S. is being distributed on DVD through New Day Films, an educational distributor that has been providing high-quality social issue films for over 40 years to Universities and Colleges. These powerful short films are being used in classrooms focusing on: Immigration and Border Studies, Latin American Studies, Gerontology, Human Rights, American Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Law, and more.

 

The DVD has Spanish Subtitles, Closed Captions, and both short films, The Mayor and The Caretaker. The films come with a free educators guide that is full of activities, questions, and framework for guiding conversations around the complex issues the films tackle, just scroll up and download the guide!

 

Streaming for Institutions


 

Easily stream The Caretaker + The Mayor to your University, College, or organization through Kanopy Streaming. Purchase a one or three year license to stream the film to your students in high-definition and share the film across your academic community in just a few clicks.

 

 

Kanopy thumbnail for The Caretaker + The Mayor