Freeheld

This was one of the many films we watched in my English GLBT literature class.

Released in 2007, Freeheld was directed and produced by Cynthia Wade, with the help of additional producers Matthew Syrett and Vanessa Roth. It has won several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Short Documentary in 2008. Significant, suspenseful, and heartfelt, the documentary tells the story of Lieutenant Laurel Hester, a policewoman dying of lung cancer who is, despite it, fighting for the right to leave her pension to her partner, Stacie against the ruling of the Ocean County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders.

This film is shot with a brutal sort of honesty. Little is withheld, especially with regards to the physical and emotional deterioration of both Laurel and Stacie as their - and their community's - campaign against the Freeholders goes on. While Freeheld can be very empowering in the regard that a community comes together to try and make a difference in the face of adversity and discrimination, it is also starkly grounding: after all, 2007 was not that long ago.

I would recommend this film for all of these reasons, especially for its down to earth, unyielding honesty about the nature of communities, the nature of the American court system of not very long ago at all, and especially the nature of the human condition at its most sensitive time - at its close.

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