Jamie Meltzer captures the beauty and heartache of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg’s COVID-inspired art installation in NOT EVEN FOR A MOMENT DO THINGS STAND STILL

For about two weeks last September, the national mall in DC was covered in little white flags. It was primarily the handiwork of artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, who intended each to represent a single life lost to COVID in the United States. But the exhibit was interactive as well, with families leaving messages on “their” flags, and having impromptu memorial moments for folks who, in many cases, could not have traditional funerals due to social distancing.

Firstenberg enlisted filmmaker Jamie Meltzer to document the installation, and the result is a powerful 15-minute short, set to screen at SXSW, entitled Not Even for a Moment Do Things Stand Still. While life under COVID may have felt for many of us like it got put on pause, the disease continues to cause sweeping changes in the lives of those who have lost family members, their loved ones, friends, and co-workers. Bizarrely, protection and prevention have become politicized, but Meltzer’s short takes no sides, except the side of compassion for all who miss someone.

We spoke to both Firstenberg and Meltzer about it.

Films Gone Wild: How has COVID affected you personally, and how did that affect your approach to this film? How did the collaboration come about?

Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg: I have not lost a loved one to COVID. I have been a hospice volunteer for 25 years, championing the dignity of the elderly. 

When then-Lt. Governor of Texas Dan Patrick suggested the elderly accept the risk of the virus for the sake of the economy, I disagreed.  When those in power decide who matters, we are all lost.  In America: Remember was my response to the devaluation of certain lives. Because the death toll had become so large as to be incomprehensible, I felt compelled to create art that would render our loss knowable, address equality and manifest empathy. 

In America: Remember, covering over twenty acres, would be the largest, public participatory art installation on the National Mall since the AIDS quilt. Images of the flags would companion pandemic stories for years to come, but the art–those flags–would be more than a photo op to visitors who walked amongst the physical manifestation of our collective loss. Somehow, we had to capture the magic of the art, the visitors’ experience.

I interviewed several potential directors, but in talking with Jamie, I immediately sensed the ability of his art to capture the magic of mine.  And he did.

For 17 days in our nation’s capital, In America: Remember created a space that transcended politics. Strangers comforted strangers. People stared in shared silence. Middle-aged men sobbed. The art reflected our human condition.

Jamie Meltzer: I haven’t experienced a loss due to COVID, which is part of what drew me to this project, feeling deeply impacted by it in so many ways, but also disturbingly distant from the losses others have experienced. 

We all know the numbers, but we can’t comprehend it. They are so large that they lose meaning. With this film I was hoping for a way to experience this loss in its monumental scope, but also to show how each individual death is deeply felt. The film is hopefully a way to connect, and in this case to also make space for other people’s grief. 

FGW: Were your team there the entire time? Approximately how much raw footage, once you discarded obvious non-final-cut takes, did you have to winnow down to 15 minutes?

JM: The film team was there for the first three days of the installation, once it opened to the public. Using two camera crews, our process was to identify people as they filled out flags to plant, get permission to film with them, and then, using a long lens from a physical distance of 50-100 feet, with a lavalier mic providing close audio, we had access to the conversations and tributes that happen when someone would plant a flag for a loved one who passed. In this way we could keep a respectful distance, but also gain incredibly privileged access to intimate moments.

FGW: Did the subjects automatically let their guards down in that situation, or did any feel affected by the camera being on them?

JM: I think people felt honored to share and have their loss recognized in this way. For many of them, they had not been able to have a funeral, so in that way the installation and the moments we captured were both very private but also were in public, which I think was important and powerful for them to have their grief recognized. And since we kept a good physical distance from everyone in the film, this allowed them to feel like it was their own moment, without interference on our part, and I think this is part of why they were so open to share their grief with us. 

FGW: Folks on the anti-regulation side of the issue tend to argue that COVID victims usually have mitigating factors or fall into distinct groups. Yet your film shows that those who survive them are very much a diverse cross-section. Is that something that happened naturally, or something you wanted to show?

SBF: Each day, walking through those flags, one saw the many hues of humanity. Visitors came from across the nation, even Alaska and Hawaii…and other countries.  Some came in the first-class cabin, others on a Greyhound bus. As I archive the 20,000 dedicated flags, I find flags dedicated in an array of languages and an array of sentiments. Their commonality lies in loss.

JM: It was important for us to show a diverse cross section of people impacted by COVID, especially showing how disparate the impact is on communities of color, but also to show international visitors, the installation attracted people from all over the world.  

FGW: Though the short obviously focuses on people emotionally affected by the exhibit, were there any troublemakers or hecklers at any point during the production? If so, how did you deal with them?

SBF: Over the course of the exhibition, there were only a few hecklers. One beautiful, angry woman approached me, insisting that I remove from the vast expanse the one blank flag that represented her mother.  “She died of a heart attack, not of the COVID she had,” the woman screamed. Her anger froze me for a few seconds, then I understood.  I looked into her sea-blue eyes and said, “Please tell me about your mother…”  Her anger was masking grief.  She shared with me a few personal stories, then she left, wiping away her tears.  So often, anger is an imposter.

FGW: Popcorn or candy?

SBF: Wine? 

JM: I prefer a mix of candy in my popcorn, with a little wine on the side.