Sarah Polley will receive the Director of the Year Award for “Women Talking” at the Palm Springs International Film Awards, which will take place in-person on Jan. 5 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. The Palm Springs Film Festival runs through Jan. 16.
“Sarah Polley continues her outstanding work as a writer and director in her latest film ‘Women Talking.’ She brings together a stellar cast in her adaptation of the Miriam Toews book, taking us on a cinematic journey filled with raw emotions and performances,” said Festival Chairman Harold Matzner.
Past recipients of the Director of the Year Award include Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog”), Alejandro G. Iñárritu (“Babel,” “Birdman”), Steve Mc Queen (“12 Years a Slave”), Alexander Payne (“Sideways”), Jason Reitman (“Up in the Air’”), David O. Russell (“The Fighter”), Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) who all went on to receive Best Director Academy Award nominations. Campion, Iñárritu and Zhao received a Best Director Oscars for their films. Polley joins this year’s previously announced honoree Colin Farrell (Desert Palm Achievement, Actor).
Based on the best-selling novel by Miriam Toews, “Women Talking” follows a group of women in an isolated religious colony as they struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony’s men. The film stars Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod, Kate Hallett, Liv McNeil, August Winter with Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand. The film is written and directed by Polley.
Polley was Oscar nommed for adapted screenplay for “Away From Her,” and her documentary “Stories We Tells” won documentary film awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, and the New York Film Critics Circle, as well as a Writer’s Guild of America award for its screenplay.