It’s been an eventful recent stretch for director Cynthia Wade. Late last month the MacArthur Foundation announced 15 grants totaling in excess of $2 million for documentary film projects. Among the recipients was Mudflow, about the social and political impacts of an environmental disaster caused by natural gas drilling in Indonesia. The documentary–which is being directed by Cynthia Wade and Sasha Friedlander, and produced via Cynthia Wade Productions–was awarded a $200,000 grant.
On a separate front, just last week (11/7), shooting wrapped on a Peter Sollett-directed narrative feature based on Freeheld, the Short Subject Documentary Oscar winner in 2008 which Wade directed, shot and produced. Wade served as a producer on the adaptation of the short which introduced us to Laurel Hester, a dying policewoman who wants to leave her pension benefits to her life partner, Stacie Andree, but that request is denied. Hester fights to gain that right so that her same-sex partner can afford to keep their house in New Jersey. In the narrative feature, Julianne Moore portrays Hester and Ellen Page plays Andree who’s an auto mechanic.
The original Freeheld earned Wade the first of two career Short Subject Documentary Oscar nominations, the second coming in 2013 for Mondays at Racine which tells the story of two sisters–Rachel and Cynthia–who run a beauty salon on Long Island. Every third Monday of the month, their salon, called Racine, provides free beauty and support services for women undergoing chemotherapy. The sisters–who lost their mother to breast cancer–are determined to give women who are losing their hair, eyebrows and eyelashes a sense of normalcy and dignity during a traumatic, uncertain time. The loss of hair and its impact on personal image evolves into a poignant, moving look at womanhood, motherhood and marriage.
Wade’s directorial credits additionally include the PBS/Sesame Street documentary Growing Hope Against Hunger which won an Emmy Award in 2012 as Outstanding Nonfiction Children’s Program, and such shorts as Born Sweet which in 2010 earned Best Documentary distinction at Aspen Shortsfest, the Grand Jury Prize Best Short honor at the Boston Independent Film Festival, and a Short Filmmaking Award-Honorable Mention at the Sundance Film Festival,
Wade has also successfully diversified into commercials and branded fare. She is handled in the ad arena by the Stephen Dickstein-founded house Recommended (RECO).
SHOOT: Does the MacArthur Foundation grant now allow you to bring Mudflow to fruition?
Wade: Yes, it will help me to finish Mudflow. I’ve been working on and off on this film since May of 2012. At that time I was in Indonesia directing a commercial for a nonprofit that creates libraries for Indonesian children. One of the locals said there was a story I should look into about a giant toxic mud volcano. I asked my crew on the commercial to stay four more days so we could investigate the story and see if we could get some footage. We got enough footage for a trailer and then the arduous task of fundraising began. I was able to get a few grants but the MacArthur grant is the most significant.
Most international scientists think this toxic volcano came about due to fracking. It ended up burying villages and forced mass evacuations. The volcano continues to explode with the equivalent of 40 Olympic-sized swimming pools of mud and toxic methane gases each day. It’s powerful and toxic–and most scientists don’t think it will stop for at least 20 more years. People are struggling with asthma and respiratory illness. Some claim their loved ones have died of cancer as a result. The majority of scientists believe that part of the problem was that the drill used was not encased and bore down deep into the ground and tapped into this mud volcano under the Earth’s surface. Now the volcano is huge and erupting.
This is also a political story as the company that allegedly caused the problem is run by the richest man in Indonesia who ran for the country’s presidency earlier this year. Both candidates claimed victory in a fiercely contested election. The populist candidate ultimately won this summer and he is vowing that reparations will be paid to the victims. There was also a question of qualified Indonesians being able to vote. If a village disappeared under the mud, the names of residents disappeared from the registered voters’ ledger. We followed some of the people who were trying to re-establish themselves and register to vote so they could make a difference in the election.
I had applied for a MacArthur grant for Mudflow in 2013. We got close but didn’t get it. We since did two more shoots in Indonesia, I reapplied for the grant and now we got it, which makes a world of difference.
SHOOT: Provide some backstory on the making of the narrative feature Freeheld based on your Oscar-winning documentary short.
Wade: After six years of development which started when the team of producers connected during Oscar week of 2008, we finished shooting last Friday [November 7]. It took years to put together the right cast and to secure the funding. We wrapped a five-week shooting schedule, all in New York State because of the tax credits. We made the New York locations to look like New Jersey.
Julianne Moore portrays the police detective Laurel Hester who is dying. Ellen Page is Stacie, Laurel’s female life partner. Michael Shannon plays Laurel’s police partner, a guy who never thought about same-sex marriage rights before. He’s a straight cop who voted the conservative ticket but this story became personal when he saw how vulnerable his police partner had become. Steve Carell plays Steven Goldstein, the chair and founder of Garden State Equality, the gay rights organization that fought for Laurel and her right to leave her pension to Stacie.
It’s an unbelievable cast with a script by Ron Nyswaner, an Oscar nominee [in 1994] for his screenplay for Philadelphia. My original documentary only told part of the story. I only knew Laurel the last 10 weeks of her life. She was dying rapidly and I didn’t have a lot of access to her. That’s why I made a short film. The narrative feature covers much more. This film starts from Laurel being a healthy cop, starting at a place where I couldn’t in the documentary. She was the only woman on a police force doing drug busts and figuring out how to break up organized crime rings. She met Stacie at a volleyball game and we follow their story which leads to when my documentary picks up–Laurel fighting for justice all the way through the end of her life.
Everybody involved in the feature-length film was very journalistic in their approach, doing extensive research to make this fictionalized version of Laurel and Stacie’s story as accurate as possible. This movie honors what really happened in an authentic way.
SHOOT: What’s next for you?
Wade: I have several documentary projects going on which I am not yet at liberty to publicly discuss. And I’ve been bitten by the narrative filmmaking bug based on my experience with the adaptation of Freeheld.
I also continue to be involved in commercials and longer form work for brands. I recently directed three Dove commercials–all shot in Bangkok–for Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago. They are really sweet, light, fun spots in which real women talk about their relationships with their underarms. One is done in Indonesian, another in Thai language for Thailand, and the third in English for the Philippines. This work sprung from my short documentary Selfie for Dove.
Selfie debuted earlier this year at Sundance (SHOOTonline, 1/28). It was not an official part of the festival lineup. Instead it premiered at a separate Sundance event to help further a Sundance Institute/Women In Film initiative for female directors while marking the 10-year anniversary of Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign.
