Filmmaker’s documentary on field hospital personal
Windsor-born documentary maker Matt Gallagher knew he wanted his next film to be about the COVID-19 field hospital on the St. Clair College campus — but he didn’t know how personal his connection to the project would become.
Gallagher’s 84-year-old father is now a patient at the field hospital after testing positive for COVID -19 at a local long-term care home.
“When my dad became part of the story, the last thing I wanted to do was to work on a documentary about it,” said Gallagher, the auteur behind such acclaimed films as Prey in 2019 and How to Prepare for Prison in 2016.
“It’s going to be a difficult story to tell, and the people in it are my family. But I got to talking with my mom, and I realized: She wants this story to be told.”
Gallagher’s current project is tentatively entitled Dispatches From a Field Hospital, and now has the backing of TVO.
Shooting has already begun, and Gallagher figures he will be gathering material for months to come.
The idea for the film came to him at the start of April. His father — who also suffers from dementia — was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus in late April.
“He’s asymptomatic, so far,” Gallagher said. “He’s having a tough time with the confusion, but he’s sitting up in bed. He still has his sense of humour. We’re all optimistic that he’s going to pull through this. He’s a very strong man.”
Gallagher won’t be able to train his camera on his father in person. Like all other media members, Gallagher has been asked to stay away from the field hospital to allow front-line health-care workers to do their duties without distraction or complication.
“I got a hard ‘no’ from the hospital administrators — which is completely understandable,” Gallagher said.
“Their Number One concern is to their patients.”
Without access to the location, Gallagher found his way to tell the story through his mother: She’s one of many people the field hospital has arranged to have daily phone and video correspondence with a hospitalized spouse, for both their benefit.
“My mother was describing how my dad gets to talk with her every day, and what a difference that makes in their lives,” Gallagher said. “And I thought, ‘Maybe that’s the documentary. The dispatches between the people in the hospital and their loved ones outside.’
“Since then, I’ve reached out to other families, and we’re starting to tell their stories as well.”
But filmmaking in a time of physical distancing and stay-at-home directives is a tricky thing. Gallagher
and his one crew member — a sound tech — have been taking all precautions.
“We travel in separate cars. We isolate from one another,” Gallagher said. “We wear masks when we’re filming. All the equipment is sterilized at the beginning of the day, the end of the day and throughout the day.”
“We have a strict protocol: We never enter anyone’s home. That’s how we’re doing this. We film people on their calls through the windows of their homes.”
That includes the residence of Gallagher’s mother, who still lives in the home in which Gallagher was raised.
“When I show up at her house, and I set up my camera outside the house, and she’s waiting for that daily phone call, my mom inevitably starts telling me about Dad,”
Gallagher said.
“For me and my mom, this documentary has brought us closer together. COVID -19, by its nature, is driving people away from each other. But I’m hoping this story, and other stories, will bring people together, in the end.”
Gallagher estimates it will be at least a year until the documentary is finished and ready for release by TVO.