“Women Talking” a film from director Sarah Polley and producer Dede Gardner, is nominated in both Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay categories at the 95th Academy Awards next Sunday, March 12, 7pm, presented Live from the Dolby Theatre in downtown Los Angeles on ABC-TV and the major streaming services. The film was a Spotlight Selection at the 60th New York Film Festival and a Special Presentation-Women in Cinema at the Chicago Film Festival.

In my earlier festival review of the film, I suggested that something would be amiss if the film were not selected for an Oscar nomination. I was prescient.  At the festival, Director Sarah Polley, along with producer Dede Garner appeared at the New York Film Festival premiere to discuss the film, along with the majority of the cast members of this virtually all-female endeavor.  NYFF Executive Director Eugene Hernandez led the Q. and A. after the festival premiere. “Fran McDormand is not with us tonight, but we raise a glass to her. She instigated this project. She got the rights to the book .  Producer Dede Gardner described her first encounter with the source material. “Fran introduced the book to me early in its run, and I quickly became obsessed with it. I instantly made a huge drawing of the compound and what it would look like and handed it to Francis and she said, “OK. Let’s do it!”  Women Talking is based on the book of the same title by Canadian writer Miriam Toews (2018 Alfred A. Knopf). Based upon, as the author described it, “an imagined response to real events,” it tells the story of a group of women living in a Mennonite colony in a remote and isolated location, who are subject to horrific and repeated nighttime attacks by the men in the colony. Toews’ novel and the film center upon the secret meetings of eight of the Mennonite women who, acting on behalf of the other colony members, must decide how they will react to the trauma of their experience. However, the clock is ticking. The men are away to post bail for the attackers who were jailed on a rape charge, and will be back to the compound in 48 hours.   As you can imagine, the book garnered its own list of high honors, including the Governor General’s Award, Trillium Book Award and was short-listed in nomination for the International Dublin Literary Award (winner-author Alice Zeniter and Irish translator Frank Wynne for the novel The Art of Losing which traced the saga of three generations of a displaced Algerian family from the 1950s to today) .  The choice of director was, for Gardner, a no brainer. “The very first person in our minds and on our short list was Sarah (Polley) and fortuitously and cosmically and spiritually, Fran had the same manager as Dede. It turns out that their manager had already talked to them both about collaborating on the project.”  Producer Gardner said she was drawn into the project by the very first words of the book.  “I was struck by one line at the end of Miriam’s introduction to the book, in which she says ‘this was an act that was the result of wild female imagination,’ and I thought that if we can capture that gesture of solidarity in the movie, then we will have done our job. We will have honored the text properly. I think what we came up with was one of the greatest expressions of female imagination ever!”  “I think the book articulated questions for me that had been swirling around in my head for some time, that I didn’t quite have words for,” Director  Polley expressed. “It’s rare that you get a project in which you want to do the film SO BADLY! I think that happens about every ten years or so.”  What also struck her as a director was the spirit of collaboration that existed from the very outset. “It was easy to take that collective spirit between Fran (McDormand) and Dede and carry that ethos right into the cast. It was the idea that this is a challenge (the film’s plot) that can’t be cracked by one person alone, but it can be cracked through a group effort with everyone standing on each other’s shoulders.”  The stellar cast includes co-producer Francis McDormand, along with Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, Liv McNeil, and Kate Hallett.    “Women Talking” is nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay in the 95th Academy Award, Sunday. March 12 at 7pmCT on ABC-TV and all major streaming services. The film is available to watch now on Prime Video, Paramount+ and all  other major streaming services.