Stories We Tell

Director: Sarah Polley
Screenwriters: Sarah Polley

Institute History

  • 2013 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Actor/director Sarah Polley previously attended the Sundance Film Festival as a filmmaker with her shorts Don’t Think Twice and I Shout Love and her first feature film, 2007’s Away From Her. Her latest is a riveting and joyful personal documentary that has screened at the Venice, Telluride, and Toronto film festivals.

Polley turns the camera on her own family and creates an essay/love letter to her actor parents: Diane, who passed away when she was 11, and Michael. In the process, she investigates a mystery she initially wasn’t even sure existed. When Polley pulls back the layers of the stories told by her siblings and close family friends, differing perceptions and buried secrets rise to the surface—with some very surprising revelations.

In pursuit of truth through art, Polley creates and recreates the past by using home movies and original footage, enfolding it in a rich, spellbinding, and emotionally affecting narrative. Five years in the making, Stories We Tell is about the stories told within Polley’s own family, but also the ones we all tell—and the way everybody’s truth is the truth.

— K. Y.

Screening Details

Credits

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]