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Report from Sundance 2007: Short Docs and Equal Rights

Published on April 17, 2007

By Harriette Yahr

At what point does the choice of a life partner become political? How does a filmmaker remain objective while telling a story about love, death and the battle for justice? As part of our Report from Sundance 2007 series, Harriette Yahr sat down to chat with three directors about what motivates them to make documentaries.

Cynthia Wade, director of Freeheld, which premiered in the documentary shorts program at this year's Sundance Film Festival, explores these questions.

Freeheld took home a Special Jury Prize for Short Filmmaking. The film follows the clock-ticking battle of Lieutenant Laurel Hester, a dying New Jersey police officer, to transfer her pension benefits to her female domestic partner, Stacie Andree. The "Freehelders" are the county officials who stand in her way. As the struggle ensues, a large part of the town erupts in support of Hester. Freeheld is a moving witness to both the power of community voice and the state of equal rights in this country.

Harriette Yahr: You've worked in both long and short form documentary. In what ways did working in short form specifically shape Freeheld?

Cynthia Wade: My main reason for making Freeheld a short film is that I only had access to Laurel Hester for a brief time. I met her ten weeks before she died, and I lived with her during her last days, on and off. The footage is dramatic and very emotional, but it is limited. So my window with Laurel determined the final length of the film. I also thought that the film would compete better as a short, in a shorts category. Many shorts are visual poems or portrait pieces. They are beautiful and well done but sometimes limited in story. I decided that I wanted to challenge myself and make a short that offered a feature-length experience. This is a full-scale drama, with a strong beginning/middle/end arc, all packed into thirty-eight minutes. It was challenging to edit.

Cynthia: I also decided that I had to make it a short because I needed to finish it within a year's time because of the national political landscape. Same-sex marriage equality is getting increased attention in the media, particularly as we head towards the 2008 elections, and I wanted this story to be part of the national dialogue now, since it is a very personal perspective of a current political issue.

Harriette: What did you learn about how the legal system impacts gay or lesbian rights?

Cynthia: What surprised me the most is how inconsistent and fractured the legal system is. I was surprised to learn that LGBTI [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex] laws can vary on a micro-level, from county to county, even township to township. In Laurel's case, New Jersey passed a resolution that allowed all state employees to share benefits with their domestic partners. However, choosing to adopt this resolution was up to the individual counties. Laurel's county, Ocean County, decided not to adopt the resolution, but six neighboring counties did. So if Laurel had been a state trooper--or if she worked for Passaic County, for instance--then she would have been able to pass her pension to Stacie without a problem. Because she worked for Ocean County, she was forced to embark on a yearlong battle with her county officials.

Harriette: Was there an experience or realization you had while making Freeheld that you never could have anticipated?

Cynthia: To be honest, I did not anticipate making Freeheld! At the time, I was working on several corporate projects, I was teaching and I'd given birth to my second child four months prior. So logistically, it didn't make sense to take on a new independent project, which had a very tight shooting window and for which I had no funding. The entire film project was unexpected. But emotionally, it was the right thing to do, and the right film for me. From the moment I met Laurel, I knew I had to make this film.

Harriette: You work with emotionally charged material. In Freeheld, there's just so much heartwrenching stuff, the real life stuff about dying and struggle, and love within it all. Do you try to keep your distance emotionally?

Cynthia: I walk the line between storyteller and friend. With Freeheld, there were many moments that I did not film. I cannot be a completely objective "fly on the wall." There was one night when Laurel was in pain, and Stacie was having trouble reaching the hospice nurse on the phone, and I got so upset that I started calling hospice myself.

As a storyteller, I am attracted to emotionally-charged material, to controversial subject matter and to tough shooting situations. My last film, Shelter Dogs, was another emotionally wrenching film that dealt with death. I shot most of that alone as well. To do that, there is a small part of me that I must deaden, because the situation is too painful to even think about, and I too am trying to get through the moment. After the film is complete, I grieve.

Harriette: How do you work objectively as a documentary filmmaker, or do you not bother to retain objectivity?

Cynthia: I don't think any filmmaker can be objective when telling a story. The process of making a documentary is one of countless choices about what to shoot and how to edit it together. All those choices are, by definition, subjective. I do aspire to have my work remain true to the story that is unfolding in front of my camera, but this story is told from my silent perspective. What the audience sees is what I saw.

Harriette: Do you see yourself as an artist or as an activist, or as both?

Cynthia: I am a storyteller first. That being said, these stories led me into what I guess you could call "activist work," but it's only because the personal connections that I have with the people in my films make me want to make a difference in the world. I would say that I am an unlikely activist. But so was Laurel.

Harriette: What excites you about documentary film? You've said to me before that your work is about women's stories. Can you talk about that within the larger context of your passion for documentaries?

Cynthia: As a filmmaker, I am attracted to tough stories about controversial issues. The stories are usually told through the eyes of strong female characters. Laurel Hester's story was compelling to me on many levels--she was a female police detective in a male-dominated world, she had helped solve many cases such as a double homicide, she was dying of cancer, and she was in love with Stacie and just wanted to pass her pension to her. Time was running out. There was a sense of urgency and purpose to the story. This was an opportunity to tell a very personal, intimate story about how equal rights are still being denied in this country. I wanted to bear witness to that.

Harriette: What are your outreach plans with Freeheld?

Cynthia: We are bringing the film to festivals both nationally and internationally in 2007. I am also working with nonprofit groups that are working for equal rights for LGBTI Americans. The film's short length makes it an ideal teaching tool.

My greatest hope is that this film reaches people that haven't really thought about this issue before. When Laurel's first police partner, Dane Wells, a straight, self-described "conservative voter" said that he was being denied the right to pass her pension, it became personal. Dane suddenly became Laurel's staunchest ally. He was an unlikely activist; it was a civil rights issue to him. My goal is that the film will make people like Dane think--maybe even for the first time--about how same-sex couples are still being denied equal rights in this country.

Freeheld was directed by Cynthia Wade, whose previous work includes the award-winning HBO documentary Shelter Dogs and the Cinemax personal documentary Grist for the Mill. Wade's camerawork has appeared on PBS, HBO/Cinemax, Bravo, AMC, MTV, A&E, Discovery, TNT, Oxygen, LOGO and The History Channel. Wade runs a video production company and teaches digital cinematography at the New School. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two daughters. Her website is cynthiawade.com.

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