“Staunch Character” imagines a centuries-long lineage of Massachusetts women — ancestors whose legacy includes stoutness of spirit in addition to a genetic heart defect. Created using found archive during an extended hospital stay preceding a heart transplant, the process of making this film — a palimpsest of embodied moments, images, and sounds — was an exercise in retrospection while contemplating how (or where) memory lives within the body. Audio excerpted from Grey Gardens speaks to the shapeless, creeping nature of time in the necessary captivity of an ICU room, and creativity as a refuge.