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C A N N O P Y

Art is True North

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Hubs & Huddles column of Cannopy Magazine, which focuses on multi-purpose performance centres
Ensemble column, which highlights classical artists and ensen, which highlights classical artists and ensembles
Ellington column, which features jazz vocalists and instrumentalists
Studio Sessions column, which focuses on in-depth artist profiles — particularly visual artists in their creative spaces
Materials column, which focuses on artists working across various creative media; Profiling Various Creative Media
Spaces column, which highlights galleries anSpaces column, which highlights galleries and exhibit venuesd exhibit venues
Fourth Wall column, which focuses on the global theatre industry
 In Motion column, which focuses on the global dance industry
In Focus column, which highlights the global film industry
Alt.itude column, which focuses on global alternative music
Homegrown column, which highlights Canadian alternative music
Arts & Letters column, which focuses on essays, opinions, and ideas related to the arts

ON THE SET: Women Talking

"Women Talking"

Actor Sheila McCarthy on the Oscar-nominated film’s work culture

WORDS BY MILES FORRESTER | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS

FEB 27, 2023 | ISSUE 11

Sheila McCarthy first came to international attention starring in the 1987 Canadian indie dramedy, I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. It was the first English-language Canadian feature to be awarded at Cannes and, domestically, earned McCarthy her first Genie for Best Actress. With two Genie Awards, two Doras, two Geminis, and an ACTRA Award, she is one of the most decorated Canadian actors working on stage and screen. In Women Talking, an adaptation of the 2018 novel by Miriam Toews, McCarthy plays Greta, the matriarch of a community of Mennonite women who must decide how they’ll respond to systematic abuse.


Miriam Toews has described her novel as “a reaction through fiction” to a campaign of sexual assaults spanning from 2005 to 2009 in the Manitoba Mennonite Colony in Bolivia. Both Toews’s novel and the film adaptation by Sarah Polley — Oscar-nominated for Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay — dramatise a debate between eight women who have 48 hours to choose their course of action, weighing their faith, community, and...

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