Frances McDormand on WOMEN TALKING | MVFF45

Producer/Actor Frances McDormand accepts the MVFF45 Mind the Gap Ensemble Award on behalf of director Sarah Polley, and the WOMEN TALKING ensemble and sits down for a conversation with Mind the Gap and Mill Valley Film Festival Director of Programming Zoë Elton. Powerful, committed performances by an extraordinary ensemble—including Frances McDormand, Judith Ivey, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, and Ben Whishaw—take us deep into the lives of a group of women as they confront a life-and-death decision: To remain in silence, or to leave in exile. Much of the action occurs in the confined setting of a village barn in their isolated Mennonite colony—located somewhere both far from our modern world and too painfully close for comfort—where the women gather secretly to determine a course of action in the wake of an urgent crisis that has affected all of their lives. In the supremely capable hands of director Sarah Polley (Away from Her, Stories We Tell), Miriam Toews’ best-selling novel unfol