This Academy Award-winning documentary chronicles the story of Laurel Hester's fight to give her earned pension benefits to her partner, Stacie.
Detective Lieutenant Laurel Hester spent 25 years investigating tough cases in Ocean County, New Jersey, protecting the rights of victims and putting her life on the line. She had no reason to expect that in the last year of her life, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, her final battle for justice would be for the woman she loved.
The documentary film FREEHELD chronicles Laurel's struggle to transfer her earned pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree. With less than six months to live, Laurel refuses to back down when her elected officials - the Ocean County Freeholders—deny her request to leave her pension to Stacie, an automatic option for heterosexual married couples.
As Laurel's plight intensifies, it spurs a media frenzy and a passionate advocacy campaign. At the same time, FREEHELD captures a quieter, personal story: that of the deep love between Laurel and Stacie as they face the reality of losing each other.
"Freeheld is a quietly understated work of art that packs a punch you will feel for days." —Armistead Maupin
"Cynthia Wade presents perhaps the single best, most coherent argument for GLBT equality. If Freeheld isn't Oscar-worthy... I don't know what is!" —Daniel Kent, Out & About Nashville
"Freeheld is simply an amazing documentary, a true piece of unscripted reality, with all its blemishes and beauty intact. It is a documentary that pays fitting tribute to a true hero, a woman who refused to compromise and who ultimately helped to secure for all of us a little bit more of the equality we all richly deserve. A+" —Edge Boston
"OUTSTANDING... An absolutely amazing film...Showing the injustice of discrimination faced by same sex couples by personalizing it with real human faces and stories is the most effective tool for changing public opinion." —Seattle Gay News
"A heart-stopping documentary." —Philadelphia Gay News
FRIDAY, OCT. 17, 7:30pm
It's Elementary (1996) was the first film of its kind to address anti-gay prejudice by providing adults with practical lessons on how to talk with kids about gay people. Hailed as "a model of intelligent directing," It's Elementary showed that children are eager and able to wrestle with stereotypes and absorb new facts about what it means to be gay or lesbian.
Since it aired on more than 100 public television stations in 1999, It's Elementary has fueled a growing movement of educators and parents—gay and straight alike—who are committed to preventing pervasive homophobia and anti-gay violence.
It's STILL Elementary (2007) looks at the incredible impact that It's Elementary has had over the last decade, follows up with some of the teachers and students featured in the first film and asks them how lessons about LGBT people changed their lives. A moving story about the power of documentary film and grassroots organizing.
Céline Sciamma's astonishingly assured first feature focuses on three schoolgirls of varying experience and élan who explore the alternately liberating and perilous possibilities inherent to their youth, burgeoning sexuality and fascination with synchronized swimming.
Imagine a pubescent Esther Williams shipped overseas to a public school in the suburbs outside Paris, and you'll have some idea of the alluring blend of teenage athleticism and ennui embodied by Marie (preternaturally perceptive lovestruck loner), Anne (zaftig party-crashing eccentric) and Floriane (sultry swim team tease), the titular water lilies who dive deep into the chilly waters of adolescence with only nose plugs, training bras and each other's kisses and confessions for protection.
Swimming through the chlorine-scented uncertainty of budding bodies and same-sex crushes, the girls move underwater with the military precision their sport demands, and ultimately prove equally fluid in defining selfhood and sensuality.
—Steven Jenkins, San Francisco International Film Festival, 2008