Eliot Rausch Directs ‘The Pool Guy’

In Über Content representative Eliot Rausch’s latest documentary series, ‘#America: The Pool Guy’, he offers the portrait of Peter Guinta, a young father who unglamorously cleans pools to support his family. Set against the background of President Barack Obama's recent nomination address at the Democratic National Convention, Rausch highlights the feeling of uncertainty that many Americans have felt over the last four years. Without being overtly political, it's a question many Americans are asking as they look out on the next four years: are we back on the road to being better off?
 


 

Despite the frustration of his daily labor ("No matter how hard I work on Friday and leave my pools pristine, almost without exception, I come back on Monday and it's like I was never there."), Peter finds reassurance and meaning from his songwriting. For him, his music is the manifestation of an unwavering belief that any anxiety he feels about his situation in life can be equally transferred into a lasting form of communication between him and his family. 

 

As Peter summarizes in the film: "Every morning you get up, that big boulder is just sitting still. And you have a choice -- you really have a choice. Am I going to put it to my shoulder and am I going to exert the sweat and the blood that it takes to move it? Am I going to get it going again? Some days the boulder gets the best of you. And some days… it's enough to push you to move, to do something."



View the film below: