Cause of Life
The million people we’ve lost to the pandemic form a portrait of America. For this series of short films, we asked five people to celebrate the life of someone close to them.
We’ve lost a million people with two things in common: They were Americans, and the coronavirus ended their lives.
For these short documentaries, the filmmaker Ben Proudfoot asked five people to tell the story of individuals they lost to the pandemic — not to dwell on their deaths but to celebrate how they lived. Together they form a portrait of America.
A dance-crazy nurse who returned from retirement to fight the virus is remembered by her twin sister. The story of a postmaster who laid the bricks of the building he managed is told by his daughter. A grandfather is eulogized by the Olympian granddaughter he helped raise after a tragic loss.
Here are their lives: complicated, imperfect, extraordinary.
Rosary Castro-Olega was a retired nurse who returned to the
front lines to fight the virus, ultimately becoming one of the Filipino-American
nurses who were disproportionately killed by the virus.
A hard-working bricklayer from the projects, Humberto
Trujillo helped build the main Phoenix post office — and rose to
become his city’s first Hispanic postmaster.
When his son-in-law was killed in a tragic car crash, World War II veteran Calvin Haworth became a surrogate parent and an activist against drunk driving in Minnesota.
A devout christian, Jerry Givens was Virginia’s chief executioner, before he became
an advocate of abolishing the death penalty.
Angela Chaddlesone McCarthy was a teenage mother raised
on a Native American reservation who overcame great odds to become a
Kiowa tribe legislator in Oklahoma.
Ben Proudfoot is a filmmaker and C.E.O. of Breakwater Studios, an Emmy-winning production company that makes short documentaries commissioned by brands and media outlets. He is the creator of the Op-Docs series “Almost Famous” and the recent Op-Doc “A Concerto is a Conversation.”
This series was a collaboration by Breakwater Studios and The New York Times Opinion video department.
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