Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland were in a Los Angeles hospital on Feb. 22, 2015, the night Julianne Moore won a Best Actress Oscar for her performance as a woman with early-onset Alzheimers in their independent film Still Alice.

Surrounded by five or six friends in the intensive care unit, they toasted with champagne, wishing they could be at the Dolby Theatre to celebrate. But the married couple was used to missing out by then. Glatzer and Westmoreland had been watching awards season roll by from the sidelines for weeks.

It felt like this dream that the film was really connecting to an audience and that her performance was being so celebrated. But at the same time, we were dealing with the reality of Richards health, and I being a caregiver and looking after someone who could no longer look after themselves, Westmoreland told me during an emotional call in August. It was the best of times and the worst of times.

Glatzer was diagnosed with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis a neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord in 2011, after developing a slight lisp. Within a year, he lost his ability to speak altogether, and began using an iPad to communicate. Westmoreland urged his husband to take it easy as his physical health declined, but Glatzer had other plans.

He would type, No. I want to make movies, Westmoreland said. He was just determined.

By that point, Glatzer had written and directed two films with Westmoreland The Fluffer and Quinceaera, the latter a Sundance hit that won the 2006 festivals grand jury prize, audience award and enough buzz to land a distribution deal with Sony Pictures Classics. From there, they made the heavily derided 2013 film The Last of Robin Hood about actor Errol Flynn, starring Kevin Kline and Dakota Fanning. Still Alice was their shot at redemption, even if Glatzers condition was tightening its grip on his body.

He started losing the use of his hands, so by the end of the shoot in 2014, he was just typing with one finger, Westmoreland recounted, audibly upset. We went into post and edited over that summer and, at the time, we just knew we were on the race against time to get this out into the world.

The film, co-starring Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart, premiered at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival . Sony Pictures Classics snatched it up from there, releasing Alice in December of that same year so it could contend for the 2015 Academy Awards. The accolades came and went, and Glatzer was on to the next project.

A few days after [Juliannes win], it was back to what film we were going to do next. He had his iPad, and by then he was typing with one toe, and he just typed C-O-L-E-T-T-E. And I said, Yeah, Westmoreland recalled, his voice trembling over the phone,Were going to do Colette.

Glatzer died three weeks after the 2015 Oscars aired, at the age of 63.