Whether short or full-length, this year’s Oscar-winning documentaries were made in part by graduates of Stanford. Cynthia Wade, MA ’96, directed Freeheld, the winning short documentary. It describes the struggle of Laurel Hester, a veteran New Jersey police lieutenant who, while she was dying of cancer, tried to leave her pension to her domestic partner, Stacie Andree. A right that would have been automatic in a heterosexual union was denied by the freeholders—elected officials—of Ocean County, N.J., until Hester’s battle garnered national attention.
Blair Foster, MA ’00, co-produced the best feature-length documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, directed by Alex Gibney. A withering examination of America’s policies on interrogation and torture during the Bush administration, the film focuses on the death in custody of Dilawar, a 22-year-old Afghan taxi driver. Detained primarily because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
