Women filming women

Women Talking (2022)

Writer-director: Sarah Polley

THIS is an important MeToo film with a seemingly ordinary title. But the point of the title is precisely that: Women are talking, and that, in itself, should be considered extremely important. For a long time, men have hogged the podiums and lecterns of the world. The idea of “women talking” – particularly on the subject of sexual abuse at the hands of men – should be enough for the rest of us to keep silent and pay attention.

Nominated for the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, Women Talking is inspired by true events that happened in an isolated Mennonite community in Bolivia between 2005 and 2009, when over 100 women and girls woke up one morning to discover they had been raped. While the elders dismissed it as the work of ghosts and demons, it was later discovered that a group of men had systematically drugged the women and girls and carried out the assault.