One of the big highlights of this year's Oscar ceremony ( should it take place ) for gay audiences won't just be the red-carpet dish, Beyonce singing every nominated song ( should that happen ) , gay Oscar scribe perennial Bruce Vilanch whipping up great material for host Jon Stewart ( a given ) or the major award winners. It will be a category that usually calls for a bathroom or cigarette break: Best Documentary Short Subject. That's because Freeheld, a short film by director Cynthia Wade, is nominated. Two days after the nominations were announced, Windy City Times caught up with Wade, who had just returned home to Brooklyn, N.Y., from a whirlwind trip to Sundance. She discussed her beautifully made film, the nomination and more.
Windy City Times: Freeheld is the little film that could. I'm so thrilled about the nomination. For our readers who are not familiar with the movie, can you please give them a brief overview?
Cynthia Wade: Sure. Freeheld follows the nail-biting, end-of-life struggle of Lt. Laurel Hester, who was a police detective in New Jersey. She had terminal cancer and months, if not weeks, to live and she was struggling, racing against the clock to leave her police pension to her female life partner, Stacie Andree. She was told 'no' by her elected officials, the freeholders, because [ the couple was ] not husband and wife, and it turned into a landmark battle in New Jersey that was really watched all over the world.
WCT: The whole crux of the matter is that Stacie will lose the house if Laurel can't designate Stacie her beneficiary, correct?
CW: Yes. Without Laurel's police pension Stacie, an auto mechanic, was poised to lose the ranch house that they bought and renovated together. They were a couple that had been together for 5½ years—they were registered domestic partners; they were life partners. I am a heterosexually married mother of two—it would have been an automatic option for me with my husband or vice versa. It was just stunning to me that this was happening just a stone's throw from New York City, where I live and work, in late 2005, early 2006. I sort of felt like I'd entered a time warp and we were in Kansas or something in the 1950s.
WCT: How did you find them?
CW: I read an article in a newspaper. I was definitely looking for my next film, and my films tend to be about controversial social issues and they tend to have strong female characters at the center of the film. I went down to a meeting where Laurel, yet again, was going to ask her elected officials, 'Please, let me take the money that I've earned and give it to the person that I love most in the world,' and she was blatantly denied and I had a camera and was filming. It was sort of a test shoot because I wasn't sure if it was a film I wanted to pursue.
Well, during the course of that meeting I realized, 'This is it—I have to make this film and I have to follow this story and spend as much time as I can with Laurel.' So I went back home to New York where I live and went upstairs to our apartment to see my husband and, at that point, we had just had a second child so we had a four-month-old and a five-year-old at home. [ Also, ] my husband had just gotten a brand-new job in which he needed to be there a lot and sort of prove himself in new circumstances. But I looked at him and I said, 'I have to go to New Jersey and I have to go make this film, and you need to help me because this story has to be told and I think I'm the person that needs to tell it. I'm going to have to be there,' and he just sort of looked at me and kind of gulped and said, 'Okay, if this is this important, let's do this as a family.' So very quickly I went back down—and it was in chunks; I wasn't there continuously—but over the course of 10 weeks I was living with Laurel and Stacie on and off and I was going back home.
WCT: That's right. You lived with them.
CW: Yes, I lived in their guest room because I really feel the only way to tell a documentary is really from the inside out and it was a political battle but really, at the heart of it, it was a love story. So my husband kind of juggled everything in New York and I very quickly fell into Laurel and Stacie's life.
WCT: Well, it's a very powerful film and has been lauded everywhere it's been seen. And then this nomination comes—did you have an idea that you were going to get it?
CW: Well, you have to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to qualify it for Oscar consideration, so it was the goal from the beginning because it was something that I discussed with Laurel. I said to her, 'I think if we keep this a short film'—partially because I knew we weren't going to have a lot of time with her quite frankly. Normally, documentaries take three to five years to make and, in this case ,we were going to lose her very quickly. So I knew that the footage would be limited and that dictated a shorter length and I said, 'I will do everything I can to get this out there. My feeling about this is we should make it a short film and try to compete in as many festivals as possible in the short category, and let me see if I can qualify this for Oscar consideration and see if we can get the attention of the Academy Awards.' I said that to her back in early '06—two years ago— and that was so exciting to her because she didn't want her struggle to be in vain. She wanted her personal story to make a very tangible difference to the thousands, if not millions, of same-sex couples that live across this country and in this world.
WCT: I would say billions but … [ Laughs ]
CW: You could be right. Let's say billions of same-sex couples … and one of my thoughts was, 'What will the world be like when I'm done with the film?' I realized that we'd be in the beginning of a national election year. I said to her, 'If we could use the story and the film as a way to garner attention for the issues of discrimination in an election year that could potentially be very powerful and really become a tool.' She loved that idea, so all along we've been screening at festivals and trying to raise awareness and having panel discussions in many places and the Oscar nomination just helps raise the awareness in an election so hopefully we can get a lot of people talking about this—and not just the LGBT community, because I really believe, as a heterosexually married woman, that this is my problem, too. This is my responsibility, too.
WCT: That's great to hear.
CW: I don't want to live in a nation where some couples are granted some rights and other couples are not granted those rights. I want to live in a nation where all couples have the same rights.
WCT: Here, here.
CW: It's my responsibility, too. So, that was my goal—to really use it as a tool and a agent of change so the Oscar nomination is amazing and it's great and if they have a ceremony I get to wear a dress and all of that—
WCT: Yes—what are you wearing?
CW: I don't know.
WCT: All the ladies and all the gay men are going to want to know, 'What are you going to wear? Who's your designer, darling?' [ CW laughs ] Listen, let me give you some numbers.
CW: Believe me, I will be getting the opinion of many gay men because they will tell the truth. Yes, I promise. But, ultimately, this really needs to be about the issue; about Laurel's legacy.
WCT: Now, can people see it? I know it's coming out on DVD at some point soon.
CW: Yes. There's a trailer on our Web site, www.freeheld.com, and you can sign up for an e-mail when the DVD becomes available. I am in final negotiations now with a major television broadcast outlet and they will be broadcasting this film nationally in June—Pride Month— [ and ] just a couple of months before the national elections.
WCT: Great, great.
CW: And then I think, by the summer, certainly by the end of the summer we will release a DVD for people, which is something I'm really excited about because we will have many extras on the DVD. There were lots of great things that I filmed that I couldn't put in there because I had to compete under 40 minutes—and the film's 38 minutes—as a short. So, they're going to be all these deleted scenes and extra interviews with Laurel and Stacie and behind the scenes stuff so it will be this expanded DVD.
WCT: Have you spoken to Stacie? This is a wonderful legacy for Laurel. What has she had to say about this?
CW: Stacie and I spoke very early on Tuesday morning after the Oscar nomination was announced. She was really happy and thrilled and said, 'This is what Laurel wanted and I'm just so happy.' She said that the night before the nominations—because she was aware that it was coming down the pike—she said she kind of had a body chill and in her mind she thought, 'We're going to get nominated.' She was probably as excited as I was and really happy, mostly for Laurel's sake—because it was something that Laurel really wanted.
