Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Oscar Nod Goes to Freeheld

Woke up this morning in Park City to the great news that the documentary short Freeheld, from Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth, has picked up an Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary Short Subject category. The film chronicles the final days of police detective Laurel Hester as she fights to transfer her pension benefits to her domestic partner before she dies. It was one year ago that Freeheld premiered here at Sundance (it won the festival's Special Jury Prize), and wherever it has been shown on its path to Oscar gold, it has moved audiences to tears. The filmmakers did an emotional interview of Hester speaking about the film, shot six weeks before her death.

Also nominated in the same Oscar category is a short doc that is currently showing here at Sundance: La Corona (The Crown), about a unique beauty pageant in a women's prison in Bogota.

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1 comment:

dizzure said...

It sure deserves an Oscar nomination and I hope it wins. I am glad we are making progress. Sometimes I feel like we are not doing enough. Our votes can be our weapon and we all need to put on our helmets and keep fighting a good fight.