"The Case Against 8" is to premiere on HBO on Monday night, Buzzfeed said. The directors of the documentary, Ben Cotner and Ryan White, will be watching as the entire US see the product of their attempt to tell how the stories of two same-sex couples successfully pushed marriage equality for all, which later helped the overturning of California's controversial Proposition 8.
Cotner discussed how the duo had gotten inspired to document the stories of the couples behind the lawsuit that challenged California's then ban on same-sex marriage. Referring to the struggles of Kris Perry and Sandy Stier, and Jeff Zarrillo and Paul Katami, he said, "I think, for us, since we never wanted to make a film about whether gay marriage was right or wrong, for us it was about telling the story. Once we got there, and got to know Kris and Sandy and Paul and Jeff, it became obvious that this is really a story about these four people's lives and how they were affected and the harms that were done by Proposition 8 to them - and there was so much in that that we related to. [B]ecause we understood the things that they were talking about, we were able to maybe hone in on some of the emotional elements."
Buzzfeed said that Cotner and White's creative output was entirely different from the efforts of Jo Becker, who wrote the book "Forcing the Spring." According to the viral news site, Becker failed to contextualized the case in the history of the marriage equality movement. Moreover, Becker's arguments on Edith Windsor's case against the federal Defense of Marriage Act created more holes in the plaintiff's case, which has implications to court decisions following the controversial federal statute.
Cotner and White, who premiered the documentary at the Sundance Film Festival this year, was successful in their storytelling largely because they focused on the plaintiff couples' Proposition 8, and told the story in the film as simple and tight as they can.
White added, "I mean, the film is called The Case Against 8. so we were keenly aware the entire time that we were just telling one small chapter in a long history and hopefully there are many chapters to be told and films and books. We were making a character film about this team of people."
