Sarah Polley has received her first Academy Award.
The Canadian filmmaker, who hails from Toronto, Ont., was awarded the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar Sunday evening for her film, Women Talking.
As she accepted her award, she joked that she was grateful to the Academy for not being offended by the phrases “women” and “talking” collectively.
“First of all, I just want to thank The Academy for not being mortally offended by the words ‘women’ and ‘talking’ put so close together like that. Cheers,” she mentioned.
She additionally gave point out to fellow Canadian, Miriam Toews, who wrote the 2018 novel of the identical title, which impressed the movie.
“Miriam Toews wrote an essential novel about a radical democracy in which people who don’t agree on every single issue managed to sit together in a room and carve out a way forward together free of violence. They do so not just by talking but also by listening,” she added.
Polley’s function movie directorial debut Away From Her was additionally nominated on this class in 2008, however she misplaced out to Joel and Ethan Coen’s No Country For Old Men.
Based on a real story, Women Talking explores a distant spiritual colony the place the male elders use a sequence of excuses to clarify away years of drugged sexual assaults on the group’s girls and women, leaving many pregnant or useless.
When the lads accountable for the assaults are caught and put in custody, the ladies should determine whether or not to remain throughout the neighborhood or depart.
The story mirrors comparable occasions that happened in a Manitoba Mennonite Colony in Bolivia.
“We felt like we were part of a movement, not a movie,” Polley mentioned in an interview final 12 months after the world premiere of Women Talking.
Sarah Polley attends the ninety fifth Annual Academy Awards on March 12, 2023 in Hollywood, California.
Kayla Oaddams / WireImage
“There’s something essential that we feel is a conversation that should be part of our world, and we want to be part of it with every part of our being.”
In the male-dominated movie trade, Polley mentioned she was grateful for the chance to collaborate with so many gifted girls, however famous that folks of all genders helped carry the movie’s dialog to the large display screen.
“Everyone on the cast and crew came to this in such a generous spirit,” she mentioned. “It wasn’t just the women on set who wanted to bring those experiences of abuse and of feeling powerless, and of moving through it and a building a better life and hopefully a better world.”
Polley, who received her begin as a baby actor and rose to turn out to be an acclaimed author and director, was competing towards movies Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Living, Top Gun: Maverick and All Quiet on the Western Front.
Polley was additionally up for the Oscar for Best Picture for a similar movie.
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.