Iconic Lesbian Film Hannah Free, Starring Sharon Gless, Makes Its Streaming Debut on OML
Hannah Free, a lesbian-themed film starring Sharon Gless that was shot in Chicago in 2008, will have its streaming debut on the OML network Nov. 12, 2026. The launch will include a special livestream with cast and crew Nov. 18 and an interview between Gless and advocate Janice Langbehn.
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The independent film also stars Taylor Miller (All My Children), Maureen Gallagher, Ann Hagemann, Kelli Strickland and Jax Jackson. The film was written by Claudia Allen, based on her stage play of the same name, and directed by Wendy Jo Carlton (Jamie and Jesse Are Not Together, Good Kisser). Allen and Tracy Baim executive-produced the movie along with Chicago-based film editor Sharon Zurek and musical composer Martie Marro. Director of Photography was Gretchen Warthen.
Hannah (Sharon Gless) and Rachel (Maureen Gallagher) grew up as little girls in the same small Midwest town, where traditional gender expectations eventually challenge their deep love for one another. Hannah becomes an adventurous, unapologetic lesbian and Rachel a strong but quiet homemaker. Weaving back and forth between past and present, with different actors playing the characters from age 10 through late in life, the film reveals how the women maintained their love affair despite a marriage, a world war, infidelities, and family denial.
The film was shot during the first election of President Obama, and debuted in 2009 at the Frameline Film Festival in San Francisco?s Castro Theater, where Rosie O?Donnell introduced the movie. It played in more than 50 film festivals and had theatrical runs in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Vicci Martinez and Blair Hansen wrote and performed the closing credits song, ?Break Away,? which won Outstanding Folk/Country Song at the Outmusic Awards. The film also won for outstanding soundtrack.
The Chicago Tribune gave the film three stars, and the Huffington Post said Gless "delivers a stellar performance that is gritty, poignant and real." The San Francisco Chronicle said that Gless "commands the screen." Notes from Hollywood called the film "achingly beautiful." The Los Angeles Times said: "Hannah Free affords a terrific role for Sharon Gless, who runs with it gloriously, playing a salty, blunt elderly lesbian." "Claudia Allen has skillfully adapted her play to the screen, opening it up without destroying its intimacy and cohesiveness. Wendy Jo Carlton has directed Hannah Free with a simplicity and cinematic fluidity that serves Allen's often tart, amusing dialogue well."
Gless, a longtime supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, also starred in Queer as Folk, Burn Notice, Cagney & Lacey, and myriad other shows and films.
"Hannah Free is a very unusual, very intimate story" and it's a story that really needs to be told," Gless said in a 2009 interview with Jorjet Harper of Windy City Times. "I think for everybody who worked on it, it was a labor of love. " It's very touching, and it's worth it. I've always believed that for an actor, your initial intention is to entertain. But if you can educate also, that's a really nice thing."
With two women stars, Cagney & Lacey had a huge fan base among lesbians. "The lesbian following was quite extraordinary," said Gless. "Judging from the mail, it was Cagney's character that attracted the lesbian audience, and I'm so grateful. The gay community has kept me going, all my career, since then. I think Cagney is still the best, most complicated woman ever written for television. She was troubled, she had attitude, and she was boyish. I insisted that all my jackets come from men's stores. It wasn't intentional to attract the gay and lesbian audience, it just did."
When the film came out, Gless pointed to Hannah Free's relevance to the issue of California's Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage, but added, "Claudia wrote this years and years ago, before any of this was an issue on the political forefront. It's amazing that, tragically, Proposition 8 passed in three states while we were shooting Hannah Free, which is a little piece of that story. But it's more than that, too; it's a love story. And I do believe love wins."
Today, the film is just as relevant, as the new presidential administration tries to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. This is why the film debut includes a special new interview between Sharon Gless and Janice Langbehn, who became an activist in 2007 after she was shut out from her partner Lisa Marie Pond's hospital room as Pond lay dying, due to bigotry from the staff. In 2010, Langbehn and her three children met with President Obama, who issued a memorandum instructing the Secretary of Health and Human Services to ensure hospitals receiving Medicaid or Medicare allow LGBTQ+ partners the same privileges and rights as heterosexuals.
OML is YouTube's home for content by and for lesbians/queer women.
See https://www.youtube.com/@OMLTelevision.
