This article investigates the role of photography in the Swedish auteur Jan Troell's film Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick/Everlasting Moments (2008) in the light of different perspectives on medium specificity, photography and adaptation. We argue that Jan Troell, by way of cinema, discusses key characteristics and functions of photography. In so doing, the film, in addition to telling the tale of a historical female photographer, raises a number of questions concerning media theory, media ontology and history. We introduce the term 'fleeting still moments' in order to account for Troell's particular cinematic strategy, negotiating movement and stills. Accordingly, the central questions in our study are as follows: what are the differences and similarities between cinema and photography? And to what degree can the differences be framed within the traditional divide between cinema's movement and photography's stillness?