Dir. Sarah Polley
2022, Canada, USA, 104 min
A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a string of sexual assaults committed by the colony’s men.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is the first museum in the world solely dedicated to celebrating and furthering human rights. The stories we tell put faces to human rights and highlight our shared humanity.
The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is proud to partner with Cinematheque to screen Women Talking. Sarah Polley’s Oscar-winning adaptation of Miriam Toews’ acclaimed novel provides an intimate look inside a community of women grappling with the brutal reality of systemic abuse in an isolated world built and controlled by the men in their lives. What unfolds is what Toews calls “an act of female imagination” – women talking about the seemingly impossible, another life.
“Oscar-nominated writer-director Sarah Polley’s fearless adaptation of Miriam Toews’ acclaimed novel grants us access to a tight-knit, cloistered religious colony in which women struggle to recover from an epidemic of abuse. Featuring riveting, emotionally complex performances from a stunning ensemble that includes Oscar nominees Rooney Mara and Jessie Buckley and Oscar winner Frances McDormand, Women Talking is a drama of harrowing revelations, fraught alliances, and the search for grace.”
– TIFF
