Sarah Polley

Sarah Polley

Birth : 1979-01-08, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

History

Sarah Polley (born January 8, 1979) is a Canadian actress, singer, film director, and screenwriter. Polley first attained notice in her role as Sara Stanley in the Canadian television series, Road to Avonlea. She has also starred in such films as The Sweet Hereafter, Guinevere, Go, The Weight of Water, My Life Without Me, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Dawn of the Dead, Splice, and Mr. Nobody. Polley made her feature film directorial debut with Away from Her, for which she won a Genie Award for Best Achievement in Direction and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. ​From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Profile

Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley
Sarah Polley

Movies

Women Talking
Screenplay
A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.
Women Talking
Director
A group of women in an isolated religious colony struggle to reconcile their faith with a series of sexual assaults committed by the colony's men.
Margaret Atwood: A Word After a Word After a Word Is Power
Self - Filmmaker
The views and thoughts of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood have never been more relevant than today. Readers turn to her work for answers as they confront the rise of authoritarian leaders, deal with increasingly intrusive technologies, and discuss climate change. Her books are useful as survival tools for hard times. But few know her private life. Who is the woman behind the stories? How does she always seem to know what is coming?
The Secret Path
Executive Producer
The Secret Path is an animated film adaptation of Gord Downie's album and Jeff Lemire's graphic novel. Working with Downie's poetry and music, Lemire has created a powerful visual representation of the life of Chanie Wenjack.
Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women
Self
Using rare footage and exclusive interviews with filmmakers from all over the globe, "Reel Herstory" corrects the historic notion that women behind the scenes in motion pictures held peripheral careers compared with their male counterparts.
Stories We Tell
Writer
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
Stories We Tell
Self (uncredited)
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
Stories We Tell
Director
Canadian actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley investigates certain secrets related to her mother, interviewing a group of family members and friends whose reliability varies depending of their implication in the events, which are remembered in different ways; so a trail of questions remains to be answered, because memory is always changing and the discovery of truth often depends on who is telling the tale.
Take This Waltz
Producer
Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.
Take This Waltz
Writer
Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.
Take This Waltz
Director
Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.
Trigger
Hillary
Ten years after ending their partnership as rock musicians, two women become re-acquainted in the course of one night.
Mr. Nobody
Adult Elise
Nemo Nobody leads an ordinary existence with his wife and 3 children; one day, he wakes up as a mortal centenarian in the year 2092.
Splice
Elsa
Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named "Dren", the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.
The Madness and Misadventures of Munchausen
Herself
This is an all new feature length documentary, with interviews from almost everyone involved with the production of the film. Gilliam never shies away from the truth, even when it comes to himself, and so this documentary is self-effacing and refreshingly frank. The documentary details not only the battles Gilliam had with Columbia in getting the film finished and released, but also the imagination and innovation that went into the production.
Wrath of Gods
Self
When Canadian director Sturla Gunnarsson set upon Iceland to film Beowulf & Grendel starring Gerard Butler and Stellan Skarsgard in 2004, they expected the usual complication involved in making a movie, but what they encountered made them wonder if the Norse gods were actually working against them.
Away from Her
Writer
A man coping with the institutionalization of his wife because of Alzheimer's disease faces an epiphany when she transfers her affections to another man, a wheel chair-bound mute who also is a patient at the nursing home.
Away from Her
Director
A man coping with the institutionalization of his wife because of Alzheimer's disease faces an epiphany when she transfers her affections to another man, a wheel chair-bound mute who also is a patient at the nursing home.
The Secret Life of Words
Hanna
A touching story of a deaf girl who is sent to an oil rig to take care of a man who has been blinded in a terrible accident. The girl has a special ability to communicate with the men on board and especially with her patient as they share intimate moments together that will change their lives forever.
Beowulf & Grendel
Selma
The blood-soaked tale of a Norse warrior's battle against the great and murderous troll, Grendel. Heads will roll. Out of allegiance to the King Hrothgar, the much respected Lord of the Danes, Beowulf leads a troop of warriors across the sea to rid a village of the marauding monster.
Don't Come Knocking
Sky
Howard Spence has seen better days. Once a big Western movie star, he now drowns his disgust for his selfish and failed life with alcohol, drugs and young women. If he were to die now, nobody would shed a tear over him, that's the sad truth. Until one day Howard learns that he might have a child somewhere out there...
Siblings
Tabby
Joe and his siblings have a couple of problems. First off, their stepparents are despicably evil. Secondly, they seemed to have killed them. Now this mixed up mess of half-sisters and step-brothers have to figure out how to dispose of the bodies, cover up the murders, collect their grandfather's inheritance and somehow stick together as a family -- all without getting caught. Not to mention Joe's incessant need to keep tabs on his promiscuous sister, an eye on the precocious little ones and a lustful watch on the girl next-door. Growing up has its complications. Murder's just one of them.
Sugar
Pregnant Girl
Cliff receives an unusual 18th birthday gift from his younger sister — marijuana, alcohol, a subway token and the mission to lose his virginity. This results in Cliff meeting a young street hustler named Butch. At first, as Butch introduces Cliff to gay street life in Toronto, Cliff is excited by his new relationship. But as the two grow closer, he finds that Butch has problems, including drug addiction, that are cause for serious concern.
Luck
Margaret
Shane Bradley, who is fixated on ideas of luck and destiny, tries to win the girl of his dreams. After their relationship falters, Shane begins to think he might be unlucky and turns to gambling as an outlet for his obsession.
Dawn of the Dead
Ana
A group of survivors take refuge in a shopping mall after the world is taken over by aggressive, flesh-eating zombies.
The I Inside
Clair
Simon Cable wakes up in a hospital bed, confused and disoriented. He soon discovers from doctors that he has amnesia and is unable to remember the last two years of his life. Cable investigates what has happened to him and slowly pieces together his enigmatic past.
My Life Without Me
Ann
A fatally ill mother with only two months to live creates a list of things she wants to do before she dies without telling her family of her illness.
The Event
Dana Shapiro
An intense relationship drama that takes the form of a mystery, The Event centers around a series of unexplained deaths that occur among the gay community in New York's fashionable Chelsea district. Nick, a district attorney investigating the most recent case, a suspicious apparent suicide, and her interviews with friends and family of the deceased trigger extensive and intricately interwoven flashbacks that reveal surprising facts about the man's life and death.
I Shout Love
Writer
Bobby is about to abandon Tessa, but in a suicidal panic she persuades him to stay one last night and reenact the good old times in front of a video camera for posterity.
I Shout Love
Director
Bobby is about to abandon Tessa, but in a suicidal panic she persuades him to stay one last night and reenact the good old times in front of a video camera for posterity.
No Such Thing
Beatrice
Beatrice's fiancé is killed by a monster in Iceland. The monster is immortal, but longs to die. Beatrice helps him achieve this by contacting a scientist who can destroy matter painlessly.
The Claim
Hope Burn
A prospector sells his wife and daughter to another gold miner for the rights to a gold mine. Twenty years later, the prospector is a wealthy man who owns much of the old west town named Kingdom Come. But changes are brewing and his past is coming back to haunt him. A surveyor and his crew scouts the town as a location for a new railroad line and a young woman suddenly appears in the town and is evidently the man's daughter.
Preludes
Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a prelude to a feature film in the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival program. The full "Preludes" anthology was screened on the web in November 2000, and was given theatrical retrospectives at the TIFF Lightbox in the subsequent years.
The Weight of Water
Maren Hontvedt
A newspaper photographer, Jean, researches the lurid and sensational axe murder of two women in 1873 as an editorial tie-in with a brutal modern double murder. She discovers a cache of papers that appear to give an account of the murders by an eyewitness.
The Law of Enclosures
Beatty 'Beatrice'
Story of the same couple, first in their teenage years and then in their twilight years, paradoxically set in the same time during the backdrop of the Gulf War in the Middle East.
This Might Be Good
A festival is a concentration of hope. Audiences hungering for something startingly new, famously familiar or just plain "good". Actors hoping their well-conceived sincerity and ritual entrances have that special glow. Press and critics poised to love or hate lucidly. And proud, desperate filmmakers looking for that little blessing on their latest self-projection. All squeezing together for a few days, in a few rooms wondering whether this will truly be the perfect place at the perfect time. Of course, it rarely is. Mostly it's just a collection of almosts. Delicious, shared almosts.
Love Come Down
Sister Sarah
Two brothers in their early 20s, one black, one white, each the other's keeper since their family was torn apart by a decade old tragedy. Neville is a comedian struggling with his comedy, and his brother, Matthew, is a boxer consumed with the pleasure and pain of his skin. Neville becomes enchanted with Niko, a beguiling young singer who becomes entangled with him on his journey of self-discovery. With the support of their long-time friend Julian and Sister Sarah, a nun with a past, Neville and Matthew come to understand love in all its forms. Written by Conquering Lion Productions/FilmWorks
Don't Think Twice
Producer
A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.
Don't Think Twice
Writer
A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.
Don't Think Twice
Director
A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.
The Life Before This
Connie
Several innocent persons are hurt after two robbers, fleeing from the police, run into a neighborhood cafe.
Guinevere
Harper Sloane
A young girl from an affluent family rebels and becomes involved with a much older photographer.
eXistenZ
Merle
A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.
Go
Ronna Martin
Grocery store clerk Simon occasionally sells drugs from his cash register at work, so when soap opera actors Adam and Zack come looking for Ecstasy on a quiet Christmas Eve, they are surprised to find Ronna covering his shift. Desperate for money, Ronna decides to become an impromptu drug dealer, unaware that Adam and Zack are secretly working for obsessed narcotics officer Burke.
The Best Day of My Life
Director
Short drama by Sarah Polley. The film was made for the "On the Fly 4" film festival. The film was shot and edited in one day.
Jerry and Tom
Deb
Tom and Jerry are two hit men, they work by day at a third-rate second-hand car dealership. Tom is a veteran and Jerry is a novice in their business, and their attitude toward their profession differs a lot. It shows when Tom is required to kill his old friend Karl.
Last Night
Jennifer Wheeler
Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.
White Lies
Catherine Chapman
How can a smart middle class girl suddenly turn into a devoted right wing debater? That's what happens with Catherine when she meets the charismatic leaders of the neo-nazi organization NIM. Catherine, a first-year university student who feels alienated from the liberal campus, joins a hate group through the Internet and becomes their voice, only to gradually question their beliefs even as she becomes more deeply involved.
The Sweet Hereafter
Nicole Burnell
A small mountain community in Canada is devastated when a school bus accident leaves more than a dozen of its children dead. A big-city lawyer arrives to help the survivors' and victims' families prepare a class-action suit, but his efforts only seem to push the townspeople further apart. At the same time, one teenage survivor of the accident has to reckon with the loss of innocence brought about by a different kind of damage.
The Planet of Junior Brown
Butter
Powerful story about love, struggle and passion of an over protective mother and her piano prodigy.
The Hanging Garden
Teen Rosemary
William, a once obese and troubled teen, goes back to his family's home after being gone, without word, for ten years and finds it (and his family) haunted with his past. He had moved to the city and become a fit, well-adjusted gay man, but during his visit home, he becomes unhinged as the newly remembered reasons for his miserable adolescence come to life in each of their presents.
Children First!
Host
A collection of 7 animation short films inspired by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Each NFB award-winning film, in their peculiar way, deals with children's rights and addresses various aspects of the Convention. - From IMDB
Joe's So Mean to Josephine
Josephine
Josephine has her eye on Joe, a hot-headed, petty criminal who taps phones for a living. When she finally worms her way into his heart she realises it's not a nice place to be. But is it too late?
Exotica
Tracey Brown
In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.
Johann's Gift to Christmas
The Angel
A mouse from the streets and a church mouse try to help a priest and an organist save Christmas by composing a Christmas carol.
Road to Avonlea: The Movie
After her father is accused of embezzlement, wealthy Sara Stanley is sent to live with her deceased mother's relatives on Prince Edward Island. While there, she must adjust to life in the small rural town of Avonlea, learn to cope with her infamous aunts, Hetty and Olivia, and learn to get along with her jealous cousins who become victims and cohorts in Sara’s antics and misadventures. Everything comes to a head when the adults are called away and her older cousin, Felicity, is left in charge – not knowing what troubles will ensue. Soon Sara must make a heart wrenching decision: whether to stay in Avonlea or return to her father. Through the combination of the episodes “The Journey Begins” and “Proof of the Pudding” this digitally-mastered movie was created as an introduction to the award-winning “Road to Avonlea” series.
Lantern Hill
Jody Turner
In 1935 Toronto, Jane Stuart's mother has taken ill, and the two of them have temporarily moved in with her rich, snobbish grandmother, where Jane is verbally abused and her mother bullied. Jane is forced into a private academy, in which the other girls tell her that her father, whom Jane believes to be dead, is actually alive. Soon after, Andrew Stuart sends word that he would like to meet his long-lost daughter, so Jane is sent by train to Bright River to stay with him, where she encounters an old mystery that she must help her father overcome, new friends, and the chance to bring her father and mother back together again.
Babar: The Movie
Young Celeste
Children's book authors Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff's most beloved elephant comes to the big screen in this animated family tale. Elephant monarch King Babar tells the tale, that unfolds via flashback, of how a much-younger Barbar and his girlfriend Celeste save her village from the pugnacious rhinoceroses that have come to raid it.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Sally Salt
An account of Baron Munchausen's supposed travels and fantastical experiences with his band of misfits.
The Big Town
Christy Donaldson
It is 1957. J.C. Cullen is a young man from a small town, with a talent for winning at craps, who leaves for the big city to work as a professional gambler. While there, he breaks the bank at a private craps game at the Gem Club, owned by George Cole, and falls in love with two women, one of them Cole's wife.
Blue Monkey
Ellen
While working in a greenhouse, a man receives an insect bite after touching an exotic plant. Immediately, he falls ill and is taken to an emergency room where the doctors diagnose him as suffering from an unknown bacteria, and a strange parasite which emerges from his mouth as a large slimy wormlike creature. Soon, there are more cases of bacterial infection, but the more immediate problem for the hospital is the wormlike creature which after accidental exposure to a genetic growth stimulant grows to monstrous proportions and starts a reign of terror and bloodshed in the hospitals abandoned wing.
Hands of a Stranger
Suzie Hearn
A New York cop becomes obsessed with finding his wife's rapist.
Pretty Kill
Karla
A detective tries to track down a serial killer who is murdering prostitutes while at the same time having to deal with his girlfriend's mental problems, which are gradually deteriorating into a split personality.
Heaven On Earth
Becky Hawthorne
An armful of destitute orphans transported to the New World at the turn of the century. This is the turbulent and moving story of four British 'bricks for Empire building' - based on the memoirs of some of the 100,000 'home children' who helped build the new Canada.
Confidential
Emma (child)
The year is 1949 and reporter Hugh Jameson is looking for a story. He focuses on Emma Porter, a woman who was accused of the axe murder of her father thirty seven years earlier. Jameson disappears during his search and his wife hires Charles Ripley P.I. to find him. Ripley's search leads him to Emma's son who has his own nasty secrets to protect.
One Magic Christmas
Molly Monaghan
Ginny Grainger, a young mother, rediscovers the joy and beauty of Christmas, thanks to the unshakable faith of her six-year-old daughter Abbie and Gideon, Ginny's very own guardian angel.
Bambi
Director
The live-action remake of the 1942 Disney animated classic.
The Best Kind of People
Producer
A community turns against a respected prep school teacher and his family after he is arrested for a sex crime
The Best Kind of People
Screenplay
A community turns against a respected prep school teacher and his family after he is arrested for a sex crime
The Best Kind of People
Director
A community turns against a respected prep school teacher and his family after he is arrested for a sex crime