THE CAMPAIGN follows the people behind California’s historic “No on 8” campaign to defend same-sex marriage through exclusive behind the scenes footage, interwoven with the national history of same-sex relationship recognition since the 1950s. The story focuses on an ensemble of five characters — Alison, Holli, Richard, Anne and Claudia — as they labor tirelessly to defeat Proposition 8, sacrificing time with the families they are fighting to protect. The film positions their efforts within the context of shifting legal and political landscapes, from Anita Bryant’s “Save our Children,” to the invention of the word “Domestic Partner” in San Francisco, to Pat Buchanan’s declaration of a “culture war,” and finally to the wave of marriage bans that swept 41 states across the nation. The shocking passage of Prop 8 in seemingly LGBT-friendly California changed the landscape forever, both for the US LGBT equality movement and for the individual activists who dropped what they were doing and threw themselves into the largest social issue campaign the us has ever seen. Featuring a beautiful score from the Kronos Quartet and Jacob Garchik, THE CAMPAIGN emerges as an unprecedented installment of LGBT social history and a signature documentary on one of the most pressing civil rights issues of our times.
Christie (she/her) is an award-winning director, editor, and producer who has worked in documentary filmmaking for over 20 years and has a strong interest in social justice. She recently produced and edited bias,a film that explores how our unconscious assumptions influence our choices. She edited and produced Code: Debugging the Gender Gap, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, and edited (with Jean Kawahara) The Point of No Return for NOVA. She directed and produced the ITVS-funded film The Campaign which aired on public television and screened at numerous film festivals and universities. Her credits include work with PBS, National Geographic, A&E, MBC1, the History Channel, and many nonprofit and corporate clients including Facebook, SFMoMA, Levis, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and the UC Berkeley School of Law. Christie has taught workshops and been a guest lecturer on film at universities around the world, including Stanford University, the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies, and in Ethiopia as an expert with the American Film Showcase. She has been a selected participant in the NBPC New Media Institute, the ITVS Queer X-Change, and the CPB/PBS Producer’s Academy at WGBH. Christie was a Resident in the San Francisco Film Society Film House and is the Steering Committee Chair of New Day Films, an educational documentary distribution coop. She received her MA in Documentary Filmmaking from Stanford University.
