Ellen Page Stars in Real-life Lesbian Drama

Ellen Page will play a lesbian mechanic at the center of a real-life landmark LGBT equality case in a feature film adaptation of the Oscar-winning documentary Freeheld, reports Deadline.

Page will portray Stacie Andree, a New Jersey car mechanic who, with her girlfriend Laurel Hester, battled to secure the latter's pension benefits after Hester was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The film's screenplay is written by Ron Nyswaner, the Academy Award-nominated writer of Philadelphia, the 1994 drama which won Tom Hanks an Oscar as best actor.

The film is an adaptation of the 2007 film of the same name which chronicled the case and which won the Academy Award for best documentary short subject. Cynthia Wade, who direted the short, will serve as one of the feature film's producers. Page, an Oscar nominee herself for the 2007 comedy Juno, has been attached to the project since 2010.