By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
The forthright Sarah Polley directs: could she make a Battle of Algiers?
“As a director, [Sarah] Polley is a rarity because of her youth,” writes Kira Cochrane in the Guardian, “but also because of her gender. She recounts the story of a friend, “an incredibly intelligent woman, who was making a film, and was meeting quite a famous actor about it. The actor eventually turned her down, saying, ‘I’m just used to working with people who are more like mad visionaries.’ I thought that was interesting, because, in fact, we’re still at a point where women aren’t allowed to be mad visionaries. We have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we’re responsible, that we can handle it, that we’ve got all our ducks in a row … most women who direct always come in on budget, always come in on schedule, and if they were wild and irresponsible it would not be put down to brilliance, but to a general flakiness.” In the extended profile, Polley mentions upcoming acting projects a couple of scripts. “Would she like to combine her interest in politics with her film-making? “I’d love to,” she says, but “I think it’s so rarely done well. It’s really hard to make a useful political film, and, at the same time, make a great film artistically – I feel like the Battle of Algiers did it, and a few Ken Loach movies … That would be my ideal, though, and one of the main reasons that I want to be a film-maker is to combine those things. But I think it’s one of the trickiest things to find a delicate and graceful way to do.”