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Your pain still hangs in air,
sharp notes of it suspended;
The voice of your despair-
That also is not ended.
When near your death a friend
Asked you what he could do,
"Remember me," you said.
We will remember you.
- Thom Gunn
FORGET ME NOT is a 60-minute documentary about
the National AIDS Memorial, the individual stories it memorializes,
and its model for turning loss into life. The most salient feature
of the memorial is its embodiment, expression and invitation
of transformation. The film communicates this through story
and visuals: neglected land to sacred ground, isolation to community,
stories of desperation to hope, local to national prominence,
life to death, death to rebirth. As nature is symbol, setting
and inspiration for this transformation, it will be an integral
creative element in the film.
As it is a story of a unique place, the film tells the individual
stories, past and present, which this place embodies and memorializes.
In addition, several high-profile political figures may appear
in the film, including Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Senator Dianne
Feinstein, former President Bill Clinton, and Senator Hillary
Rodham Clinton who personally visited the Grove after it was
granted national memorial status.
As an attempt to raise the level of national awareness of the
Grove and the AIDS crisis, a design competition has been launched
for a central, architectural design feature in the Grove. The
unfolding design competition will be a structural thread in
the film, allowing opportunity to “peer into” the
process of creating memorial, while also adding a level of dramatic
tension and suspense.
From beginning to end, the film’s arc spans the process
of transformation in its many faces and facets: the land, from
abandoned to embraced; the dead, from forsaken to seared in stone
and memory; the surviving, from isolation to community; and the
notion of memorial itself, from a small idea to bigger than could
have been imagined. What emerges is a celluloid tapestry, a blueprint
for growth, healing and renewal, as in nature itself.
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