Michael quotes Pablo Neruda: "Love is so short, forgetting so long." Run Towards the Danger is out next month. [32] In August 2014, during a profile of her work as a director, Polley announced that Alias Grace was being adapted into a six-part miniseries. The Stories We Tell Characters | GradeSaver She served as a member of the 2007 Cannes Film Festival jury.[27]. The story of her mother's affair and her biological father Harry Gulkin, producer of the film Lies My Father Told Me (1975), was chronicled in Polley's film Stories We Tell (2012). A decade later, hours before she was to introduce a Montreal screening of Away From Her her first film as a director and one that would land her an Oscar nomination a secret that had been buried all of her 28 years suddenly burst into the open: Michael Polley was not her biological father. October 11, 2012, Ken Woroner/National Film Board of Canada, Sarah Polley received the shattering news in the fall of 2006, just after launching Away From Her, her Oscar-nominated feature-directing debut. What is different is that she is hospitably voluble. Sarah was "staggered" to find an article that coldly spelt out that, for Diane, this was "the cost of adultery". His quirky, engagingly self-deprecatory commentary contributes hugely to the film's charm. 'Stories We Tell' Breathes New Life into the Documentary Form "I was more concerned the film should include everybody's version and not be one-dimensional," Sarah says, but concedes: "Telling stories is our way of coping, a way of creating shape out of a mess. [11], Polley was raised by Diane and Michael. I somehow conflated finding this out with the idea that I created the situation.. She closely examined the details of Diane Polleys life, from a career perspective and her tumultuous private life. Polley attended the Canadian Film Centre's directing program in 2001, and won the Genie Award for Best Live Action Short Drama in 2003 for her short film I Shout Love. Memory's Chorus: Stories We Tell and Sarah Polley's Theory of [45] Shirley Li of The Atlantic called it "vibrant cinema," while Anna Bogutskaya of Time Out (magazine) said that it "imagines female emancipation as an honest, raging, caring experience. Memory is not a convenient barn in which truth can be stored through successive winters. Its different if somebody else is indiscreet about you.. She already has a classy track record as a film director. Despite Polleys comfort in front of the camera, turning her lens inward was no easy feat. It was "a very, very dark period. But Polleys choice to share herself in Run Towards the Danger did not make him anxious in the same way, and he praised her for taking the risk and acknowledging her own vulnerability. Every other ramshackle shop seems to be attempting to evolve into an art gallery. There were all these weird discrepancies in the stories, and we were also all so invested in telling it. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. She cast Jonathon Crombie in his first role, in the widely watched miniseries Anne of Green Gables. That was such a relief, said Polley, whose next project is adapting Margaret Atwoods Alias Grace. This was something that compelled me. Stories We Tell - Reeling Reviews At 14, she left home. She sees the harnessing of his writing talent as "something my mother always wanted, a last thing I could do for her". June 12, 2022 by by And now here it is: Cafe Diplomatico, Little Italy, nicknamed "the Dip", which has been open for business for 45 years a Toronto landmark. Sarah Ellen Polley OC (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian filmmaker, political activist and retired actress. I did get to spend so much time with everybody my mom was close to and ask them for hours uninterrupted about what she was like, she said. Shes an artist, he said. Despite the fact that the family had watched Diane battle the cancer that eventually killed her, when she died everyone was shocked. And Stories We Tell, five years in the making, is no exception. In the documentary, it is revealed that he is Sarah's biological father. The death came as a shock, even though her father and older siblings had watched Diane Polley battle the disease for months. Since making the film, she volunteers, she keeps hearing stories far more "extraordinary" than her own. All of which makes the stories Sarah Polley tells in Stories We Tell an enormously intriguing lot. I had a fever for 2 weeks after I read that result. During her childhood, the case had understandably been "underplayed". But actually, she is on her best behaviour. Initially conceived as a collaboration between director Wim Wenders and his friend of 20 years, the choreographer Pina Bausch, after Bausch died in 2009 of cancer, Pina took on a life of its own. Stories We Tell is a love-letter to her mother and father: the film's stars are retired British actor Michael Polley and the once-famous Canadian performer and TV personality Diane Polley, who . I never believed the secret could be kept this long, says Polley, sitting down for her first interview about the movie, scheduled for release Oct. 12. This family consists of Sarah's sister Susy (51), a thoughtful GP, and her brother John (50), a winningly camp casting director the children of Sarah's mother's first marriage Mark (45), a delightful lawyer, and Joanna (41), an attractive teacher with a PhD in philosophy. In a strange way, I contributed to that, he said. Sarah Polley - Wikipedia [4] Polley's second film, Take This Waltz (2011), premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival,[5] followed by her first documentary film, Stories We Tell (2012). [60], On August 23, 2011, Polley married David Sandomierski, who at the time was working on his SJD degree (equivalent to a PhD in law) at the University of Toronto, which he would complete six years later, in 2017. Polley searches for her own answers while asking some universal and often uncomfortable questions about betrayal, identity, the loss of trust and the definition of family. Polley had five children, several of whom followed their parents into theatre, including her youngest, actor and director Sarah Polley.. Sarah is surprised but not displeased the faux footage has fooled audiences: "I had been wondering, in my own life, what was real and what wasn't. [26], In 2006, Polley took a role on the acclaimed series Slings and Arrows during its third and final season. And though that might keep another director occupied, it's just the start here, because no two children, no two friends no two lovers, even paint the same portrait of Diane Polley. In 2003 she got married, to David Wharnsby, a film editor. Meanwhile she divorced, remarried, raised a mutant child in the sci-fi horror film Splice, portrayed a depressed mother in Mr. Nobody, directed Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen in Take This Waltz, and had a baby. To update your cookie settings, please visit the, Academic & Personal: 24 hour online access, Corporate R&D Professionals: 24 hour online access, https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(13)70470-4, The Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia, The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific, Statement on offensive historical content, For academic or personal research use, select 'Academic and Personal', For corporate R&D use, select 'Corporate R&D Professionals'. "In December 2009, I made a film to be aired during the Academy Awards that I believed was to promote the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Toronto, Toronto Division, Ontario, Canada (cancer) Place of Burial: Toronto, Toronto Division, ON, Canada: Immediate Family: . Including the filmmaker, whose previous fictional treks behind the camera the Alzheimer's love story Away from Her, for instance have hardly been conventional. hide caption. In fact, there was even speculation that their actress mother Diane, who died of cancer before Polley hit her teen years, had had an affair with an actor who she was appearing with in a play in Montreal. [59], In 2007, Polley discovered that her father, Michael Polley, who had raised her, was not her biological father. Sarah even found and filmed a newspaper cutting reporting on the case. In her new essay collection, Run Towards the Danger, the actress and filmmaker examines intensely personal stories shes still sorting out for herself. After her first marriage failed, she was the first woman in Canada to lose custody of her children, permitted to see John and Susy only once a month.. A young Sarah Polley and her actor father, Michael Polley, on a long-ago day; the photo is one of many family memories that surface in Stories We Tell, a superb meditation on dramatizing memory from the director of Away from Her. There were other things she did not share with her siblings either. Before marrying Michael Polley, she was front-page news when she left her first husband and became the first Canadian mother to lose custody of her children (Sarahs half-sister and brother). Stories We Tell has brought her family together, says Polley, but the five-year struggle to make it was painfulsitting in an editing room thinking about your childhood, and your mother whos gone. Like a child who feels responsible for her parents divorce, Polley felt guilty for uncovering the affair. But storyteller Sarah decided to face her family issues through a new documentary entitled Stories We Tell. Now, she feels "a lot more admiration. [17] In 2017, Polley executive produced the film A Better Man (2017),[31], In late 2012, Polley announced that she would be adapting Margaret Atwood's novel Alias Grace. Polley's mom died in 1990 of cancer, and her father remembers bonding then with his youngest daughter. It was really interesting to have a big drama in your own life, and have this need to make it into narrative.. What was really going on?. The star was best known for his role as Gilbert Blythe in the CBC TV Anne of Green Gables movies. A talented actress ("The Sweet Hereafter") turned gifted director ("Away From Her," "Take This Waltz"), she initially structures "Stories We Tell" as an attempt to discover more about her mother,. She also wrote the miniseries Alias Grace,[6] based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood. Update this section! This entry, titled Alice, Collapsing, is one that Polley said shed made multiple attempts at completing since she was 19. In another chapter, The Woman Who Stayed Silent, Polley revisits what she used to call a funny party story about my worst date ever with Jian Ghomeshi, the musician and former CBC radio host who in 2016 was acquitted of five charges related to sexual assault. While working as a casting director Polley helped discover the comedy group The kids in the hall, and later guest starred on their show. Polley made her feature film directorial debut with Away from Her (2006), for which she won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. And she has not given up on it now although with the directing and writing (she is working on a screenplay of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace) there has been no spare time. He says, I encouraged her anytime she felt I was inadequate to have an affair, as long as she didnt leave me. When Polley was promoting Take This Waltz, someone noted that, like Away From Her, its about a stoical husband who faces betrayal without anger. Everything about her, including her handshake, has a lightness of touch like her work. But Stories We Tell, which was produced by the National Film Board, unwraps the riddle of Polleys birth with such compelling intrigue that documentary seems to undersell it. When its symptoms were at their worst, Polley, the preternaturally poised actor (The Sweet Hereafter) and filmmaker of probing dramas (Away From Her, Take This Waltz), could not concentrate on her family or her screenwriting. By Nicole Sperling, Los Angeles Times. She remembers staying up until the small hours talking about books with Michael "and smoking" she laughs and "not wanting to be anywhere else". For me, I love the feeling of using different parts of my brain separately. Stories We Tell revolves firstly around Diane Polley, the director's energetic mother and sometimes stage actress, who died of cancer when Polley was eleven years old. Diane is a socialite, who feels hemmed in by her introverted husband. I wasnt interested in exposing myself, said Polley, 34, whose diminutive stature belies a striking ambition. Indiewire called it the finest of Polleys filmmaking skills while New York Magazines David Edelstein referred to Polley as a gifted actress and possibly more gifted writer-director.. The content on this site is intended for healthcare professionals. But my family is enormously judgmental of the institution. In its first chapter, Run Towards the Danger offers a melancholy reflection on Polleys teenage struggles with scoliosis, her body horror juxtaposed with several anxious, frustrating months spent playing the lead in a Stratford Festival production of Alice Through the Looking Glass. Her mother died of cancer when Polley was 11; her father sank into a depression and by age 14 the author had left home to move in with an older brothers ex-girlfriend and largely figure out the world for herself. (Polley writes in the book that she saw Gerwigs film, calling it beautifully realized.). Signup for our newsletter to get notified about our next ride. She was in the pilot episode for Friday the 13th The Series, as well as appearing in a small role in William Fruet's sci-fi horror film Blue Monkey, both in 1987. That got exploded for me as this prison I was living in.. Her newfound perspective arises from her work with a doctor who instructed her not to retreat from the activities that triggered her symptoms but to seek them out and embrace the discomfort they caused. As I fly to Canada to meet Sarah Polley, I think about the glimpses of her in Stories We Tell her first full-length documentary feature, which bowled over critics at Sundance and the Venice film festival and has won Canada's Film of the Year award. even paint the same portrait of Diane Polley. At least that was her story. She listens more than she talks. She adds that she was never under any illusions about her mother's "devastation and guilt at losing Johnny and Susy". Polley's mom died in 1990 of cancer, and her father remembers bonding then with his youngest daughter. She looks like a contemplative Madonna on screen, with long, fair hair. The biological one, Harry Gulkinthe producer of the Oscar-nominated Lies My Father Told Me (1975)met Diane when she was in Montreal starring in a play called Oh Toronto. But over a period of nearly four years, she recuperated, emerging with restored focus and with an upgraded philosophical outlook that has infused nearly every aspect of her life. But Sarah Polley, a professional performer from childhood, blossomed into a fine young actress: in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter , David Cronenberg's eX istenZ , Kathryn Bigelow's The Weight of Water . On a Saturday morning this past January, Polley was speaking in a video interview from her home in Toronto. When did Diane Polley die? - Answers Polley writes that, as other charges mounted against Ghomeshi in this era before the #MeToo movement, she was dissuaded from coming forward by friends, lawyers and other experts who warned that her memory and sexual history would be subjected to merciless cross-examination. In a new, extremely intimate documentary five years in the making, Polley searches for her own answers while posing universal and sometimes uncomfortable questions about betrayal, identity and the definition of family. [6] As she grew up in Toronto under the care of her father, Michael, Polleys conception of her mother was fuzzily constructed from memories, photographs and family stories. Polley, who became a mother herself during the making of this familial drama, found herself needing breaks during the long process, at one point leaving Stories We Tell for seven months to write and direct Take This Waltz, a narrative feature starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen released in the U.S. last year. Did I really feel that? Now Sarah has given him one. Canada's Documentary Essentials: 'Stories We Tell' - POV Magazine It took Polley almost a year before she could bring herself to tell the man who raised her that she doesnt share his genes. [61][62] They have three children together. Sarah now smarts on her mother's behalf to think of the "shame" she must have felt. And Polley believes: "We blame relationships for that gap. During her recovery, Polley gave up her screenwriting duties on a film version of Louisa May Alcotts Little Women, which instead was written and directed by Greta Gerwig. Both dads vie for custody of the story. Polley is hardly a novice when it comes to untangling knotty personal narratives in front of an audience. She sees herself as a part-time extrovert. We would always have a good dinner on the table usually with home-baked dessert. It drew rave reviews from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and the three Toronto dailies, both for the performances of Christie and her co-star, Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent, and for Polley's direction. She was nominated as Best European Actress by the European Film Academy for her role as Hanna. There was an intense claustrophobia involved, and I often felt like, OK, Ive processed this stuff personally, so what the hell am I doing continuing to make this film about this topic and having to go into it every day?. Her role in the 2003 film My Life Without Me garnered the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in 2004. In 1998, Polley appeared in the critically acclaimed film Last Night. In the film she determines to find out whether the joke has substance, a quest that will eventually lead to a "sick feeling of responsibility and an enormous crushing guilt that laid me out for a few weeks. Away from Her was acquired by Lionsgate for release in the US for the sum of $750,000. Polley also appeared in 44 episodes of the Canadian drama Street . Its a 19th-century tale of a Canadian servant convicted of murder, so this one hopefully wont strike as close to home. While Polley was recuperating from her concussion, Atwood said she held the rights to her novel Alias Grace a book that Polley first asked her if she could adapt when she was 17 so that she could complete a TV mini-series based on it. A DNA test confirmed her suspicions that the man she had called dad all her life, Toronto actor Michael Polley, was not her biological father. Part of this is figuring out, what the hell happened?. Stories We Tell is released in cinemas on 28 July. Though Polley never officially announced her retirement from acting she has not taken another acting role since 2010, transitioning into a writing and directing career. [10], Polley suffered from severe scoliosis as a child, and underwent a spinal operation at 15 that required her to spend the next year in bed recovering. Diane Polley was a Canadian actor and casting director. If you don't remember your password, you can reset it by entering your email address and clicking the Reset Password button. She was previously married to Michael Polley and George Deans-Buchan. Sarah Polley's Personal Family Issues in Stories We Tell And, looking back, Sarah acknowledges that "taking care of me became the centre of his life". Touring the world with friends one mile and pub at a time; southlake carroll basketball. Feb. 17, 2022. Roadside Attractions What binds the "children" is their mother, Diane Polley an actress and casting director who died when Sarah was 11. This page was last modified on 12 February 2016, at 17:27. I realized, thats my dad, she says. But being candid doesnt mean that you always know what the truth is. There were all these weird discrepancies in the stories, and we were also all so invested in telling it. What is moving is how keenly everyone feels the loss of Diane, more than 20 years on. Critics have responded to Stories We Tell as a significant step in Polleys evolution as a filmmaker. Home Movies - Bright Wall/Dark Room She fills me in on an "epic disaster of the mayor who has been accused of smoking crack" (he denies it) but otherwise describes the city as "diverse, tolerant, multicultural". He wound up saying that when he married, in 1967, his one hope was that his children would never feel they had to participate in something so absurd. Who is Sarah Polley dating? Sarah Polley boyfriend, husband [1][2][3] I have never actively promoted any corporate brand, and cannot do so now. The revelation sent Polley reeling: If her father was not her father, then who was her mother, and what did that mean about her own identity? Dame Diana Rigg's cause of death confirmed after brave private cancer . Ive never sat down and spoken on camera about personal stuff, so I was nervous and it was tiring and probably therapeutic in some ways, he said. Science fiction is really about now', "Netflix Nabs Sarah Polley Miniseries Based on Margaret Atwood True-Crime Novel", "Sarah Polley will adapt and direct John Green's 'Looking for Alaska', "Amy Pascal, Sarah Polley Team on 'Little Women' Remake at Sony (Exclusive)", "Why it's a perfect time for Greta Gerwig's version of 'Little Women', "Why Rebecca Thomas Directing John Green's 'Looking For Alaska' Is A Big Deal", "John Green Dodges Questions About Looking for Alaska Movie Replacement", "Putting Timothy Olyphant in a silly Santa hat only makes him more menacing", "Frances McDormand to Star in 'Women Talking' From Director Sarah Polley", "Telluride Unveils Lineup of Films to "Fight About", "https://deadline.com/2022/11/women-talking-christmas-release-date-rooney-mara-sarah-polley-1235175344/", https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/women_talking, "When a Single Conversation Can Mean Life or Death", "Nominating Peter Kormos for the Ontario NDP leadership was the proudest moment of my life", "Sarah Polley's new work gets Oscar debut", "Sarah Polley pulls her name from Heart and Stroke film over Becel sponsorship", "The matter with The Heart is product endorsement", "Sarah Polley strips name from Oscar short", "Sarah Polley picks Peggy Nash for NDP leader", "Sarah Polley: The Men You Meet Making Movies", "Sarah Polley makes only movies she'd see - from indies to zombie flicks", "Sarah Polley talks of her 'whole new level' of breastfeeding while screening latest film in Colorado", http://alumni2.westernu.ca/fam/western-law/2018/western-law-welcomes-new.html, "Sarah Polley breaks silence about traumatic encounter with Jian Ghomeshi", "2010 Inductees for The Canada Honours Announced", "NFB shorts: Stories Sarah Tells, Canadian Famous and Daniel Lanois", "Sarah Polley, Blue Rodeo founders join Order of Canada", "Sarah Polley named ACTRA's Woman of the Year", "Sarah Polley's 'Stories We Tell' wins Writers Guild award", Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actress, Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Screenplay, New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best First Film, Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Breakthrough Filmmaker, San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Satellite Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Documentary Screenplay, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sarah_Polley&oldid=1142761912, Best Actress Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners, Best Director Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners, Best First Feature Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners, Best Screenplay Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners, Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series Canadian Screen Award winners, Canadian people of Russian-Jewish descent, Directors of Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners for Best Live Action Short Drama, Directors of Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners for Best Documentary Film, Governor General's Performing Arts Award winners, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Main role (seasons 15), guest (seasons 67), Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in 2007, Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Series, Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series, Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Supporting Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series, Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series, Best Performance by an Actress in a Continuing Leading Dramatic Role, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Katie Galloway & Kelly Duane de la Vega (2011), This page was last edited on 4 March 2023, at 06:30. [17] She was awarded the CAN$100,000 prize for best Canadian film of the year by the Toronto Film Critics Association. Michael Polley was jolted into restarting a long-dormant writing career, penning nearly 80 pages of copy with details of the story from his perspective.
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