Director Cynthia Wade and Producer Vanessa Roth made Park Slope
proud on Sunday night when they won the Oscar for Freeheld, their short documentary.

Both women live with their families in Park Slope and have production companies here, too. Roth’s company, Big Year Productions, was established in 1994 to produce social issue documentaries and outreach programs that "challenge systems and promote progressive social change."

Interestingly, Roth is at work on a feature documentary about teachers with author and 826nyc  and McSweeney’s founder, Dave Eggers.

Their Oscar-winning film, Freeheld, is the story of Laurel, a female detective, who spent 25 years investigating
tough cases in 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.

This film documents her 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.