Permission to mourn: A documentary series on grief in a variety of lenses at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic

• Main Authors: De Castro, Angela D.C, Oabel, Darleen Kate E., Moreno, Patricia Alyssandra D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: Grief; COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020 > Philippines; Documentary films; Film and Media Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdb_comm/24; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=etdb_comm
• Institution: De La Salle University

Grief is a natural response to loss. Oftentimes, it manifests in different forms such as regret, depression, and fatigue. Nevertheless, this reaction pushes the bereaved to enter into a healing process by finding a myriad of coping mechanisms. However, with the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, people’s capacity to grieve properly has been suppressed with all of the restrictions and health protocols. This study provides discussions on grief and its role towards bereaved individuals. It contextualizes grief within pandemics in the past and compares it to grief during the COVID-19 pandemic, which some scholars refer to as “the worst pandemic in the century.” The paper also provides deeper understanding on the Philippines’ COVID-19 policies and how these affected the bereaved with the way they grieve, particularly the possibility of unresolved grief and other psychological impacts that can affect one’s daily routine. Through purposeful sampling, the researchers were able to find three (3) participants who have lost their loved ones in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. After conducting semi-structured narrative interviews, the researchers discovered four (4) challenges to their grieving, namely pandemic protocols, distance, lack of support, and abruptness of events. In addition, four (4) coping mechanisms were utilized to cope with their grief: keeping keepsakes, continuing routines, finding distractions, and verbalizing their feelings. Using Labov’s Socio-Linguistic Approach to Narrative and the Agenda-Setting Theory, the researchers were able to come up with three media frames centering on local, international, and political contexts to push their agenda of unresolved grief during the COVID-19 pandemic in their documentary series. In sharing the participants’ experiences, the researchers aim to go beyond the statistics, emphasizing empathy and consoling the bereaved during the pandemic.