{"id":128477,"date":"2025-09-08T09:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128477\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T09:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T09:23:08","slug":"oscar-winning-filmmaker-sarah-polley-honoured-with-key-to-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/128477\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar-winning filmmaker Sarah Polley honoured with key to city"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow presented\u00a0Academy Award winning filmmaker Sarah Polley\u00a0with a key to the city\u00a0Saturday night to honour her contributions to cinema and advocacy for Canadian stories and voices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Polley received the honour from Chow at the annual xoTO House event, which celebrates Toronto’s role as a hub for film production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It means a great deal obviously to be honoured in Toronto, the place that has shaped every part of my life,” said Polley at the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“A home I’ve never considered leaving even for a moment. It’s also a place that provides endless opportunities to meditate while caught in traffic, whatever your mode of transportation.”<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Toronto, Polly is best known for her films Away from Her, Women Talking, and Stories We Tell.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2023, she won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking, a film about women in an isolated religious community revealing a secret about the men there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Sarah Polley’s work has touched audiences around the world while always remaining true to Toronto and Canadian stories,” Chow said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Her films challenge us to reflect, to care, and to imagine better futures.”<\/p>\n

While accepting the key, Polley also spoke out about the need to fight for the rights of unhoused people in Toronto and for the people of Gaza.<\/p>\n

She highlighted the work of Glia, a London-based medical organization that provides 3D-printed devices to hospitals in Gaza.<\/p>\n

“This is a city with a proud history of protests and almost revolutions. Now more than ever, I believe we need to make ourselves heard, be loud and declare ourselves,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ASarah Polley, who won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2023, received a key to the City of Toronto. (Global News)<\/p>\n

Polley is the second filmmaker to be presented with a key to the city in recently months, after\u00a0Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro<\/a> was given the honour in July in recognition of\u00a0his long-standing creative relationship with the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow presented\u00a0Academy Award winning filmmaker Sarah Polley\u00a0with a key to the city\u00a0Saturday night to honour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-128477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}