- Welcome to Independent Lens .
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
Tonight, we celebrate
the seemingly lost art of selflessness
in a film CBS News calls
'A love letter from son to mother'
in the film Duty Free .
Duty Free tells the story
of an immigrant single mom of two boys,
Rebecca Danigelis, who worked her fingers to the bone
to support her family.
But Danigelis was fired from her job as a hotel housekeeper
without cause after fifty years
and eventually found herself at the tender age of 75,
unable to find work and with no savings or retirement.
Enter Rebecca's son Sian-Pierre Regis, who directed this film.
In order to lift his mother's spirits,
Regis started a crowdfunding campaign to take his mom
on a year-long bucket list adventure
to bring some joy into her life
and give back after her lifetime of sacrifice.
Their trek together turns
into a soul-enriching journey of self-discovery for Rebecca.
So, how does an idea evolve into an actual documentary?
A documentary filmmaker can find material almost anywhere.
For Sian-Pierre Regis, it was phone messages.
Regis would receive voicemails from his mother complaining
about how she was being squeezed out of her job.
Sian decided to use Rebecca's voicemails as material
for short episodic pieces about his mother's story
to post online.
It wasn't until he took her on her bucket list trip
that he realized he had a feature film on his hands.
Amid the many sweet moments in Duty Free
are a few harsh realities as Regis shows that
what happened to his mother
is quite common for people of her generation,
many of whom face economic uncertainty
after being fired unexpectedly.
Fittingly, Duty Free was released on Mother's Day.
And, in case you're wondering,
Rebecca's bucket list included
milking a cow, skydiving, joining Instagram
(not all at the same time), and taking a hip hop class.
The director says his mom is now 80,
and her bucket list keeps growing.
Sequel anyone?
Duty Free starts now on PBS Wisconsin
your home for independent film.