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HBO: How did you come to this story?
Cynthia Wade: I was not expecting to make a film about
Laurel Hester. I read an article in a local
paper about Laurel Hester's fight to leave her
pension to her domestic partner, Stacie
Andree, and I decided to go to a town meeting
in New Jersey where she was protesting her
elected officials, the Freeholders. Laurel was
going to ask the Freeholders to allow her to
leave her pension to her life partner.
I walked into a room that was so still and
tense. There were probably a hundred and
thirty people there, silently holding red signs
that said, "Don't let Lieutenant Laurel Hester
die like this". And the five elected officials, the
Freeholders, entered the room. What
unfolded in front of my eyes was so staggering
to me that I knew instantly that the direction
of my life was going to change, and that I was
going to do whatever I could to tell her story.
I drove back to Brooklyn, New York, where I
live and work, and went into my apartment.
My husband had been taking care of our four
month old daughter and our five year old
daughter. He had just started a new job, and
he knows that when I start a new film it
typically means I go live with the subjects and
I leave the family temporarily. With an infant
at home, it was not necessarily the right time
to be leaving the family. But within three days
I was with Laurel and Stacie in the hospital,
and for the last ten weeks of Laurel's life I
lived with them on and off in their home. It
was very important for me to tell the story
from the inside, to tell it as a love story first,
as a political battle second.
HBO: What was it about that first hearing that
convinced you?
Cynthia Wade: I think, unfortunately, that there are many
Laurel Hesters in communities across this
country, and there are struggles against
discrimination that are being played out every
day. With this story, I felt like I could say
something larger and possibly more universal
about the state of rights for same sex couples
in this nation.
I tend to make controversial social issue films,
usually told through the eyes of strong female
characters. Laurel herself was so full of
integrity and honesty, and so was Stacie. The
more time that I spent with them, the more I
felt that their relationship was no different
than my marriage. Why was it that I, as a
heterosexually married woman, would be able
to inherit my husband's pension but Laurel
couldn't leave her pension to Stacie?
So it became very important to me to tell this
story because I felt so moved, and a little
shocked that this was happening an hour and
a half away from where I live. It felt a little bit
like I entered a time warp, that I was in
Kansas in the 1950's, and yet here we were at
the end of 2005 in New Jersey in what is
typically a fairly liberal, blue state.
HBO: The film stirs different emotions. One is
outrage at the injustice, the other is the
empathy you feel for the relationship. Was
that a conscious choice?
Cynthia Wade: We struggled a lot in the editing between how
much this would be a story of politics versus
how much it would be a love story. And we
had many different openings for the film. It
was difficult because there were so many
different directions the story could take.
One of the things that really moved me about
witnessing Laurel's struggle was that she had
unlikely supporters. There were
heterosexually married male cops - guys who
would not have considered themselves prior to
this event "gay activists" - and yet some of
them were her strongest allies. In telling the
story, I wanted to be able to hit the
heterosexual audience in America as much as
possible, hit the unexpected allies, people that
normally don't think about the discrimination
that gay and lesbian couples face, but in
watching the film could understand that
there's a discrepancy in this country.
HBO: What were the most difficult things you faced
while shooting?
Cynthia Wade: The hardest challenges were ethical. Making a
documentary can pose ethical questions along
the way, but when your main character is
dying rapidly, it opens up a giant Pandora's
box of moral issues. Laurel and Stacie gave
me access to their lives in an extremely
vulnerable and emotional time. I did not want
to hurt them in any way. We all felt that the
film was important, and that it could be used
as a tool for social change, but we were
dealing with real life too. Respecting them was
extremely important to me. I was constantly
asking myself, "Should I shoot this? Should I
put down the camera? Is this too much?" As
Laurel got sicker, I put down the camera a lot.
There were definitely things that I didn't film
because it felt too invasive. I also gave Laurel
and Stacie a small video camera so that they
could be part of the filmmaking process. In
this way, it was a collaboration. Some of the
best footage came from Stacie - she filmed
herself calling doctors during her lunch break,
in her car. And the last three shots of Laurel
on her deathbed were shot by Stacie.
HBO: Discrimination is a huge issue in society. In
making Freeheld, were there any universal
truths you discovered about the subject?
Cynthia Wade: I think that Laurel's battle was part of a
changing tide, particularly in New Jersey.
Nine months after Laurel died the New Jersey
Supreme Court ruled that same sex couples
must have the same rights as married
heterosexual couples, and then civil unions
were created in New Jersey. Now we've
actually found out that civil unions don't work
because some companies are not validating
the civil unions the way you would a
marriage, so there's further to go in New
Jersey. And certainly in many other states,
there's much further to go.
But you can see that people are realizing that
there is a huge landscape of discrimination
that needs to be addressed and changed. I
hope, as a wife and a mother, that my
children will inherit a society that is more
equitable and just and there will come a time
when people will look back and say, wow, was
there really a time that gay and lesbian
couples were denied rights?
My greatest hope for the film is that it's
message will be able to reach what I call the
unexpected audience - folks who wouldn't
deliberately Tivo a gay and lesbian film about
a dying police officer, but happen to stumble
across the film. My hope is that they watch it,
and understand Laurel and who she was, and
Laurel and Stacie's relationship, and become
involved in their story on an emotional level,
not as a political tool, but really as a love
story, and in seeing the film, they think about
what really makes, "in sickness and in health,
till death do us part" -- what really makes a
relationship in the dead of night. That's
probably my greatest hope, is that it's a
starting point, and it's an opportunity to move
into a world you didn't know before, but after
entering that world, you're affected after
having witnessed it.
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