Son turns his mom's bucket list adventure into a documentary


When his mother called to tell him she had been fired from her job as a hotel housekeeper, Sian-Pierre Regis knew it was time for her to stop worrying about taking care of everyone else and start focusing on herself.
His mom, Rebecca Danigelis, was fired in 2016, at the age of 75. By that point, she had been working hard for decades, and Regis was concerned that without a job, she would feel adrift. "She worked her hands to the bone," Regis told CBS Evening News. "She deserved to feel joy. And that's what I wanted to give her."
Regis, a freelance journalist, had his mom share with him her bucket list — things she had always wanted to do, but couldn't because of work. Soon, they were on the road, doing everything from milking cows in Vermont to dancing in a hop-hop class to jumping out of an airplane. Regis filmed their adventures and turned the footage into a documentary called Duty Free, which is about their journey, ageism, and financial insecurity. The documentary is now in theaters and available to stream online. Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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