two women in a film called free held now these two women oh my gosh helen page and julianne moore i got to say whenever ellen page or julianne moore is in a movie i just get instantly interested yes absolutely because they are two of hollywood's fi finest actors and they always deliver good films and in this rare occasion they are both in it together so today on them you  julianne moore and ellen page delivering an amazing story in the film free help now what's  pout actually it's based on a true story it's a story of a police officer who would works so many years gave her life to the child but she was also closeted other words she was gay didn't tell anybody until just the right person came along and fell in love and she was diagnosed with cancer partners or spouses of officers could receive benefits in such cases what makes this historical piece interesting is that she was denied because her partner was the same gender as her and hence the story how was it turned out i'm not going to give it away i suppose you could look up the thirty available but why spoil the film and really what we want to do is celebrate these two gifted muses so today on the news here are julianne moore and ellen twenty three years recently i was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer when my heterosexual colleagues die the pensions go to their spouses but because my partner is a woman i don't get to do that in my career i've never asked for special treatment i'm only asking for carries i am not a radical i am a middle class jewish homosexual from new jersey how about you sweetheart i'm a straight white protestant it is you ok with that sweetheart i am that is very hot  so yes that you like tax dollars go to her girlfriend yet the same way your wife get your pension if you die if she's my wife l if you and i got married tomorrow i'd be entitled to your benefits this is not a proposal for good  sadness that i can't imagine so i'm excited for to go out in the world finally you know and also stacey's here at the festival and she's coming to the film tonight as well as dame michael shannon  god and so yeah you do sort of have to keep that in mind yeah this is a very very important thing i mean we're both really feeling it that you know we talk about movies all the time they go out there and who was all excited and it's a gala to get dressed up in whatever and they feel emotional but but but in reality this is a true story and these are real people and and two of the people are here tonight and we're depicting their lives on screen in a in a big a lmost incomprehensible way so you know so to to remember to kind of keep our humanity during all about and know that this is and this is so personal almost unbearably personal you know is  s have experienced you know far far worse difficulties discrimination be thrown in jail etc so the progress is remarkable in regards to the recent supreme court decision and that being said there is more work to be done you know there's many states where you can get fired for just being gay or trans are denied housing a homeless youth rate of the homeless or forty percent of the homeless youth and has a really staggering statistic and so there is so much more work to be done and you hope that this film really really shows us what inequality means how it devalues a person how it says you are less than and then also just the logistics of what inequality does the logistics in people's lives particularly in their you know social economic situation it really really really greatly affects people's lives so you hope that yeah it's a capsule of the time that can continue to inspire the things that need to be changed the one things i found so inspiring about laurel hastur was that she was a passionate believer in the justice system and she loved law enforcement and it's all she ever wanted she always wanted to be a detective and she was a very good detective and spent a lot of time kind of working even without asking for recognition you know and didn't expect it she believed that she she believed in the system and she believed that she was a good guy and she was going to and she was helping out people who needed help so that really had been the focus of her life and and when she stays see you kind of switch from that to this incredibly rewarding and intimate personal relationship and i think they you see how how both she and stacy have kind of kept their their personal you know separate from their relationship to the world so so when they're faced with this difficulty they're forced to kind of bring their relationship out in public which is difficult for anybody to do you know i mean i think our relationships to our partners are maybe the most intimate parts of ourselves in our lives i don't think anybody wants to drag it into a courtroom but the fact that she did it because she believed in the system and she believed that her the woman she loved to serve justice is incredibly moving and so by by acquiring justice for that she loved she also she also kind of moved it along for everybody else in the united states well you know i think a big part of stacey's i want to speak for stacey the person but in this film the character of her or her journey and her arc in this movie is because for me so early painful because she is she's reluctant to participate in that activism because her participation in it or her even acknowledgement of it is is acknowledging the fact that the love of her life is going to die and and and i can't even fathom what that would feel like and you know so it gets to a point where some part of her is at least beginning to finally figure out how to accept that and grieve that loss and the knowing that that loss is to come and is and does understand what laurels talking about  and for me it was tricky because ellen as a person was i would always just cry cry cry just cry and cry when i read that speech and you know stacy's shy stacy doesn't want to talk in a room full of people nor would you want to cry in a room full of people but you're talking about a situation that i can't even fathom having to go through well i mean you know i think that's what attracted us both to the movie initially is that it's a love story and that's that is often a love story is often about central to all of our lives you know who how do you who do you meet your loved one and how do you how do you plan your lives together where do you where you live what you do every day how is that frontal to your life you know it's like well what is it like if someone says to you you can have your house that you bought together and furnish together and lived in together you can't have health benefits you can't visit your loved one in the hospital we want to acknowledge you're a family member how does that impact somebody personally intimately and especially in this where you see where you've seen what these women mean to each other so it's a way of driving the political home of of showing  this is a waste of time essence of the story to me is about laurel has turned stacy andre meeting falling in love been together for years at their domestic partnership they have a house together and laurel gets diagnosed with stage four cancer and begins to die and goes to give her pension benefits to stacy which was the law at the time in new jersey in regards to same sex couples and domestic partnership but there was this loophole that let county officials decide who got the pension benefits and who didn't and they said no to laurel who had worked her entire life as a as a police officer  and she was closeted and so then the you know basically the whole story becomes this this really really inspiring fight for justice during a time and and to individuals life that is just a tragedy and difficulty of unimaginable proportion i think it says like deep deep sensitivity connection to the material and he wrote ultimately a beautiful love story and i think really captured the essence of laurel and stacie the relationship  and just completely moved me every time i read the script leading up to it i would cry and when someone can do that just you know off the page it's pretty pretty extraordinary julie is probably one of the most like generous of spirit kind hearted sensitive funny motivated like hard working people i've  met and had the privilege of working with and her energy in regards to her sensitivity how much she cares about people her empathy  think is just like such a force and the work i see her do and the roles she chooses the amount of gay roles she's played she's you know honestly been really important and stacie were incredibly incredibly important people and the gay rights movement and it's people like laurel and stacie who and moments of tremendous difficulty were really put themselves out there and really fought hard and the reason they did that is as as well as with you know many other people is why they were where we are today it's those people those people who stand up  really really difficult moments and decide to come out and and and decide to fight for justice and fight for equality and to get to be fortunate enough to be a part of telling their story means so much to me particularly as a gay person and i am just excited for it to come out and people hear their story and be moved by it you know people who are already on our side and maybe hopefully some who are could potentially watch the movie and realize that our love is no different from there and our pain is no different from there are certain and can keep if people know me back home it's hard to go out and have privacy  it is a human rights story it's a gay rights story it is a police story as well there are so many things in this film and ron managed to kind of pull it all together in a really for you a full format and it really made you feel like you were experiencing it as these women were experiencing it when i met stacy andre i asked her about that and said that they met and stacy goes i looked at her and i knew that was it and they were going to be together and they were there was a large age disparity  stacy had to move to new jersey to be with her she was kind of commuting from pennsylvania to new jersey there was a lot that they both had to compromise on but they loved each other and they cared about each other and they ha a had a big important life together i think it was a you know it's a major major love story they were very private people and they cared about their lives and their community and their house and each other and laurel didn't have a lot of time left you know i mean that was that the fact that they chose to spend the last year of her life fighting this battle making the documentary i mean they really they allowed cynthia wade to come into their house and really document what was happening in terms of the legal struggle and the personal struggle it was an incredible sacrifice and dane welch was also really instrumental in all of that he was the one who said we can we can change this we can we can make this work for us you know we we want to change the system laurel i mean i did a tremendous amount of research to to play oral history to everything that i could and one of things that really struck me about her was that she was someone who cared very much about justice and about law enforcement and about the dog and had cared about that all of her life you know started working very young and always wanted to be a police officer really wanted to be a detective she worked harder than just about anybody because she believed in doing things the right way and because she believed in justice and the irony is that the last year of her life you know she said she's she said i've done this my entire life for other people and now i want justice for the woman that i love i feel so lucky that i got to know her and that we became friends through this we had a pretty instant connection and i really felt every day that we were operating as a team i think it was important to us as as actors be there for each other as friends and i think we wanted that for laurel and stacy what we know this is a love story we that was the most important thing that you see that connection the deep love that they had for each other and the kind of support that they offered each other to and ellen is an extraordinary actress with and mensa amount of sensitivity i always say that the big surprise about her is that she kind of she pleads with her intellect you know and and and the biggest surprise is that there this kind of credibly open very very sensitive very feeling person there i was so fortunate to have her as a partner in this my name is  county police department for twenty three years here today with my partner stacy andre in my career i've never been afraid of injury or death while performing my duties that's the job i love my job recently i was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer it's possible i finally met an opponent i can't be please reconsider your decision and grant my request to assign my pension benefits to stacey when i'm gone when my heterosexual colleagues die their pensions go to their spouses but because my partner is a woman i don't get to do that in my twenty three years as a police officer i've never asked for special treatment i'm only asking for equality what these freeholders are doing is unconscionable we need to let them know that either they reverse their decision or they're going to be consequences they've never had the city they have never met me before their next meeting we shop with one hundred protesters gay cops gay attorneys a priest a rabbi i know a couple gay grandmothers maybe we organize a gay pride parade i mean a bunch of bare chested men in leather marching down main street we show them that we are a force to be reckoned with in this county there are quarter million senior citizens registered republicans are going to turn them all against laura i appreciate your perspective i ran corazon senate campaign in two thousand so i know what i'm doing ok steve but i know this community it's steven with a v as in