“I was never, ever allowed to go, I could barely whisper the words ‘Keystone Cinema’ without feeling hot flames licking at my heels,” she said during an email interview. Toews was astonished to learn that her film is opening at Steinbach’s one movie house. The men confessed and leaders turned them over to law enforcement for their own safety. Finally, women caught assailants entering their homes. The colony’s male leaders alleged that the victims were telling tales - or, given abundant physical evidence of the crimes, were bearing divine punishment for sins. From 2005 to 2009, a group of male colonists repeatedly sprayed cattle tranquilizers into houses at night and violently raped hundreds of the community’s women and girls. “Women Talking” is based on horrifying true events in a Mennonite colony in Bolivia. Scripted and directed by fellow Canadian Sarah Polley, the adaptation captures Toews’ ultimate objective, making us consider the victims of misogyny: the real women and girls behind her story as well as women everywhere. Leading up to this year’s Oscars ceremony, it’s tempting to ask impossible questions like: Why are movie sequels considered adaptations? Why the blanket snub for “ White Noise”? And more generally, what do academy voters have against literary material? Instead, I reached out to the one living author whose story is represented among nominees for adapted screenplay (as well as best picture): Miriam Toews, who wrote the bestselling 2018 novel “Women Talking.”
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