Described as an emotional night, Kristen Stewart attended the screening of 'Still Alice' with Julianne Moore at the AFI Film Festival Wednesday evening in Los Angeles.
Stewart and Moore were joined by executive producer and former First Lady of California Maria Shriver along with directors Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland in an emotional Q & A.
'Still Alice' is "based on Lisa Genova's bestselling novel, "Alice" chronicles the heartbreaking progression of early on set Alzheimer's disease for Dr. Alice Howard (Julianne Moore), a 50-year-old accomplished Columbia University professor and mother of three grown children. While she struggles to not "lose herself" to the disease, her family (played by Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, Hunter Parish and Kate Bosworth) all react to her condition in different ways." (HitFix)
More after the break
Stewart who plays Moores daughter (Lydia) spoke about her perspective with playing a family member of a parent who has the disease.
"I think a common sentiment is that you hear about someone with Alzheimer's and instantly you think, 'Oh, wow. That must be so hard for the family.' And I don't want to discredit that in any way. Absolutely, it's atrocious, it's sicking. It's hard for me to talk about without feeling that I'm trivializing it by using the wrong words. What I love about this movie is that it's about a family that sort of discovers in losing someone, you discover why this pillar exists. If she hadn't started to step out of this light you might never really blink your eyes to focus on her. I play someone who, absolutely, as we all do, take for granted certain things that seem so apparently a natural part of life. And then as soon as those things start to descend into darkness it's sort of…for everyone it doesn't speak to how good a person Lydia is, or maybe some people here think Alex's character was not as strong. To polarize and define those things so clearly, it's prejudice. It's personally informed and of course we're all going to have certain opinions and feelings that are so assigned to us because of who we are. But, really, this movie just makes you go, 'Oh my God. I should really just open my eyes clearly to things that are in front of me every single day.'"
Shriver disgust her personal experience dealing with the Alzheimer's with her father Sargent Shriver who battled with the disease.
"...My hope is that it [the film] will touch people of all ages and they will understand this idea in a new way. My dad died of Alzheimer's and it's affecting people every 90 seconds in this country. There is $6 billion allotted to AIDS and to cancer but there is only $600 million to trying to find a cure for Alzheimer's. And millions and millions of families are going through what we saw in this movie. My hope, having done a lot in this field through the news business, through books, through HBO documentaries, is that this film being brought to life by these incredible actors does something we haven't been able to do, which is to put it into the mainstream, to make young people become interested in this disease, because it will affect their parents and it's affecting women disproportionally at a very young age. I'm hoping people will see the love in this movie. They will understand the loving family and understand it's a disease that's affecting millions and millions of people and we can do better. We can find a cure, otherwise we will see this play out in every room and every country around the world. I'm hoping these actors and directors and writers will be able to do something we haven't been able to do in this fight, to find a cure for Alzheimer's. So I have high expectations for this film and the message of it."
Sony Studios is on a campaign push for Oscar nominations for both stars. Both Moore and Stewart have been receiving critical acclaim for their roles. Moore is stated to be a strong contender for the Best Actress Oscar. Stewart is being lauded for her strong performance for a Best Supporting Actress nomination.
'Still Alice' is set to have a limited release for Oscar contention in New York and Los Angeles on December 5th and full theatrical release on January 16th.
Read more of the nights festivities at HitFix. See more photos of the event here.
[Credits]: Hitfix/Zimbio
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