"I am attracted to situations where the stakes are high
-- ethical dilemmas, wrenching decisions -- these are the
stories I want to capture because there's simply no time for
anything but the purest of human responses, positive or
negative."
Academy Award-Winning Director Cynthia Wade
The Dorothy H. Hirshon Film Festival presents
Vision and Risk: The Films of Cynthia Wade
April 11, 2008
Artist in Residence Cynthia Wade,
Includes a screening, a panel discussion, and a master class
Presented by the Department of Media Studies.
Peter Haratonik, Interim Chair
Dawnja Burris, Associate Chair and Co-Producer
Annie Howell, Assistant Chair for Documentary Studies and Co-Producer
This annual event was established by a bequest from the late Dorothy Hirshon, a trustee of New School University for 61 years, with the mission of promoting excellence and education in the filmmaking arts. This sixth Hirshon Film Festival is devoted to independent filmmaking and includes a master class, screening, and panel discussion with the artist-in-residence, Cynthia Wade.
Cynthia Wade's award-winning documentary films are drawn from
polarizing and emotionally gripping subject matter and typically
chronicle a personal story with larger social implications. As an
independent filmmaker with twenty years experience, Wade fuels her creative
process with an unflinching artistic vision and a high
tolerance for risk.
Her documentary Freeheld won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 80th Academy Awards. The film also won a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and thirteen other awards worldwide. Wade's award-winning HBO documentary Shelter Dogs was broadcast in seven countries.
She also directed the 1999 Cinemax Reel Life documentary Grist For The Mill, which The Hollywood Reporter called “a delight…full of quirky moments and clever humor” and Variety called “a jewel … extremely comical.” She was co-producer and principal verite cinematographer for the 1998 PBS documentary Taken In: The Lives of America's Foster Children, which won a duPont-Columbia Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Wade has been a Director of Photography for PBS, HBO/Cinemax, Bravo, AMC, MTV, A&E, Discovery, TNT, Oxygen, LOGO, and The History Channel. She received a BA cum laude from Smith College and an MA in Documentary Film Production from Stanford University.
Wade runs a video production company and teaches advanced digital cinematography at The New School. She lives in New York City with her husband and two children.
The New School is pleased and honored to welcome Cynthia Wade as the 2008 Hirshon Film Festival artist-in-residence.
SCHEDULE OF PRIVATE EVENTS
Friday, April 11
Cynthia Wade Master Class and Lecture
2:00-3:30 p.m., 66 West 12th Street, Room 404
Open to New School students and faculty.
Current New School students and faculty may participate in this lecture and conversation with Cynthia,
her editor David Teague, and composer Rob Schwimmer. Come and learn about the behind-the-scenes
work on her recent, Academy Award-winning short documentary Freeheld.
RSVP by Monday, April 7 to media@newschool.edu
Attendees must be seated by 2:00 p.m.
SCHEDULE OF PUBLIC EVENTS
Friday, April 11
Screening: Freeheld
7:00-9:00 p.m., Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street
Reception to follow
Enjoy a special opportunity to hear the Cynthia Wade introduce her film. A panel discussion with guests follows.
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, that 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. The film is structured
chronologically, following both the escalation of Laurel's battle with the Freeholders and the
decline of her health as cancer spreads to her brain.
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. Alternating from packed public
demonstrations at the county courthouse to quiet, tender moments of Laurel and Stacie at home,
Freeheld combines tension-filled political drama with personal detail, creating a nuanced study
of a grassroots fight for justice.
Panel Discussion
Following the screening, Cynthia and guests will discuss the issue of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender equality in this country and how the film is being used to help further the cause
leading up to the 2008 Elections.
Guests include:
George Farrugia, former President, Gay Officers Action League of New York. George argued on
Laurel Hester's behalf and opens the film and is currently the Supervisor of the Criminal
Court Bureau of Queens County and the Officers' LGBT Liaison.
Terri Gordon, Assistant Professor. Terri Gordon has been teaching at The New School since
1998. She has also taught at Barnard College and Columbia University. She received her PhD
in French and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, where she specialized in French,
German, and British literature of the modernist period. She has published on the cabaret,
post-war film, and performance art in the Third Reich, and her translation of Jean Genet’s Elle
was adapted for an off-Broadway production in the summer of 2002. She received The New
School Distinguished University Teaching Award in 2003 and teaches interdisciplinary courses in
the areas of ethics and literature, gender studies, urban studies, and the aesthetics of the body.
Deirdre Boyle, Associate Professor. MA, Antioch College; MSW, New York University. Media
historian, critic, and curator. She has published eight books, including Subject to Change:
Guerrilla Television Revisited (Oxford), and is writing a book on the work of Errol Morris.
She has taught at New York University, Fordham University, Rutgers University, and City
College/CUNY, and been guest curator for the Hong Kong Arts Centre, Brussels Video Festival,
and The Museum of Modern Art, among others. Awards include The New School’s Teaching
Excellence Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, Asian Cultural Council
Fellowships, and Cable Ace Award for Best Documentary Series. Current research interests
and classes focus on hybrid documentary; media, history, and memory; and media consumption
and the body.
Moderated by:
Elizabeth Ellsworth, Professor. PhD, University of Wisconsin. Research interests and teaching
areas include film and media theory and criticism, film and social change, and uses of media
to teach about and across social and cultural difference. Formerly professor of Educational
Communications Technology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she also has taught at
Columbia University Teachers College. She has published five books including Teaching Positions:
Difference, Pedagogy, and The Power of Address. Her current work draws from architecture
and media studies to address issues of time, space, and place in mediated learning environments.
Thursday, May 1
Screening
The 29th Annual New School Invitational Film Show
7:00-9:00 p.m., Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street
Reception to follow
The 29th annual Invitational Film Show, presenting the year’s outstanding New School student films,
concludes the 2009 Dorothy H. Hirshon Film Festival. Films have been selected in a juried competition
by a panel of distinguished filmmakers and film industry professionals and represent the exceptional
narratives, documentaries, and experimental shorts produced in the New School Media Studies program.
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all public events are free on a first-come, first-served basis.