Director Sarah Polley gets personal in ‘Stories We Tell’
Posted August 30, 2012 8:38 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Canadian filmmaker Sarah Polley has looked to her own life as the subject of her latest film.
In Stories We Tell, Polley tells the story of finding out that her father, British-born actor Michael Polley, was not her biological father, and how unveiling that truth allowed her family to tell their own version of the past.
In a blog posted on the National Film Board website, Polley explained how she revealed to her father that she was a product of an extra-marital affair after a journalist discovered her secret.
“I got in touch with the journalist and begged him not to print the story. It was a story that I had kept secret from many people in my life including my father. It took some time and many tears to convince the journalist not to print the story within the week, but I left that conversation convinced that it was not a secret I could keep for long, and that if I wanted the people in my life and outside my life to know the story in my own words, I would have to take action,” she wrote.
Her father and biological father each began to write their own story of their history with her mother.
Polley said this made her think about the concept of people’s need to tell stories.
“The process of watching a story take on a life of its own, mutate, and change in so many other people’s words fascinated me,” she explained. “I decided to make a film about our need to tell stories, to own our stories, to understand them, and to have them heard.”
Polley said through this process she was able to learn more about her mother than she ever would have had the chance to. Diana Polley died when Sarah was 11.
The feature length documentary had its first screening at the Venice Fay Film Festival on Aug. 29.
It will make its Canadian debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sept. 7 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema and Sept. 8 at the TIFF Bell Lightbox.
Polley has said that due to the film’s personal nature, she will not be doing any interviews to promote it.
