Image, poster and trailer courtesy of Mongrel Media and the National Film Board

In this inspired, genre-twisting film, Oscar®-nominated writer/director Sarah Polley discovers that the truth depends on who’s telling it. Polley is both filmmaker and detective as she investigates the secrets of her own family. She playfully interrogates each family member eliciting refreshingly candid, yet sometimes contradictory, answers to the same questions. As each relates their version of the family story, present-day recollections shift into nostalgia-tinged glimpses of a lively, fun-loving past and the shadows just beneath. Polley unravels the paradoxes to reveal the essence of family: a messy, intense and loving tangle of contradictions. Stories We Tell explores the elusive nature of truth and memory, but at its core is a deeply personal film about her own life, her mother and her fathers. Stories We Tell is ultimately a love story that measures the power of memory, forgiveness and acceptance.


(January 8, 2013, Toronto) - Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley’s documentary inquiry into her tangled family history, has won the Toronto Film Critics Association’s 2012 Rogers Best Canadian Film Award, which includes a $100,000 cash prize.

108 minutes - documentary
Release date: October 12, 2012
Canadian distributor: Mongrel Media
US distributor: Roadside Attractions
Northernstars.ca reviews Stories We Tell