Tom Tagholm of Various Films directed this moving piece for the U.K.’s Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) out of creative agency MullenLowe UK.
Focused on adult social care, the public service film delves into the world of care providers and how they connect with those they help. We feel how gratifying it is to assist people in daily tasks, the value it brings to their lives–and to the lives of those who provide this special care.
It’s a special career for people who might not have previously considered the role. It’s about a fulfilling job that fulfills lives. There’s a shared, reciprocal energy that emerges from working together in this way.
Capturing this dynamic and doing justice to this human story grew out of the creatives and filmmaker spending an extended amount of time in this world–long before any scheduled lensing. At this juncture, there were no cameras, just getting to know those involved–sharing tea and chatting, driven by a curiosity about life.
And this facilitated down the line the capturing of real human stories–trying not to get in the way of the natural rhythms of these special relationships as they unfolded. The mission was to recognize and capture all this–and in some cases uncover the significant moments and feelings inside of an apparently normal day. At the same time, the role of adult special care providers isn’t sugarcoated. There are challenges on both sides of the relationship. Yet there is a magic to the seemingly mundane, practical beats in a life–getting from point A to point B, answering emails, shopping, the daily tasks where the connection felt the most vivid and inspiring. One such task was seeing a man in a kitchen, cutting an onion for the first time, experiencing the joy of cooking.
The film unfolds to “Good Song” by Blur who generously donated the track.
