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‘Run Towards the Danger’: Confronting Fear to Live a Fuller Life
In this empowering moderated conversation, award-winning filmmaker and author SARAH POLLEY shares the wisdom from her acclaimed book Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory. An exquisite storyteller who is unafraid to confront complex experiences with honesty, Polley reveals how she learned to overcome challenges by running toward danger. In this heart-opening conversation, Polley inspires audiences to move toward discomfort and unease in order to live a fuller life – to confront difficult stories and deep fears in order to be free.
Mental Health: Living Alongside Anxiety in a Creative Way
Award-winning filmmaker, actor, and author SARAH POLLEY is known for her vulnerable and complex storytelling that emphasizes our shared humanity. In this moderated conversation, Polley offers an empowering message about the reality of living with anxiety. Polley shares her personal experience learning to move forward alongside anxiety (instead of waiting for it to pass) and reveals how she learned to stop interpreting anxiety as a stop sign and instead use that energy to move forward in a deeper, more creative way.
The Creative Process
Multi-hyphenate creative SARAH POLLEY has spent decades honing her creative process across mediums – acting, directing, screenwriting, and as an author. In this inspiring moderated conversation, Polley guides audiences to get in touch with their own unbridled creative energy by confronting obstacles and challenges. Polley reveals how connecting with your internal creative wisdom generates new solutions and motivation to overcome any obstacle.
Storytelling Our Own Lives
Exquisite storyteller SARAH POLLEY is known for her resonant films Women Talking and Stories We Tell and her acclaimed book Run Towards the Danger. Polley’s work explores the importance of creative narratives in making sense of our own lives and the world around us. As we explore the multi-faceted nature of the stories we tell ourselves, Polley invites audiences to reexamine these narratives, embrace the complexities, and move forward with greater compassion and wisdom as we make sense of the bewildering nature of our lives.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Sarah Polley won the 2023 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking. The film also received a Best Picture nomination.
She received an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay for her first film as director- Away From Her, based on the short story The Bear Came Over the Mountain by Alice Munro. This film also garnered an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for star Julie Christie. Her next film Take This Waltz starred Michelle Williams, Seth Rogen, and Sarah Silverman. Stories We Tell, her documentary which examines secrets and memory in her own family, won Best Documentary Film awards from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, National Board of Review, and the New York Film Critics Circle, as well as a Writer’s Guild of America award for its screenplay. Polley executive produced and wrote the Netflix limited series Alias, Grace, which she adapted from Margaret Atwood’s novel.
As an actor, Polley starred in a wide variety of films including Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter (Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics), Doug Liman’s Go (Independent Spirit Award nomination), Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead, Jaco Van Dormael’s Mr. Nobody opposite Jared Leto, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Weight of Water opposite Ciaran Hinds, David Cronenberg’s Existenz, Isabel Coixet’s The Secret Life of Words and My Life Without Me (Canadian Screen Award, Best Actress), Audrey Wells’ Guinevere, Wim Wenders’ Don’t Come Knocking, Michael Winterbottom’s The Claim, and Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.
In 2022, Polley released Run Towards the Danger: Confrontations with a Body of Memory to rave reviews. It is an autobiographical collection of essays detailing her relationship with her body and how her memory of past and present experiences has contributed to her evolving understanding of self.
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