Sarah Polley says a family secret led to her new doc, ‘Stories We Tell’

TORONTO – Acclaimed actress and filmmaker Sarah Polley says her own family secret inspired her new documentary, “Stories We Tell.”

The doc, which debuted Wednesday at the Venice Film Festival, probes the secrets behind a family of storytellers.

In a guest blog post on the National Film Board of Canada website, the Oscar-nominated writer-director reveals she made the doc after learning the identity of her biological father.

The Toronto-based star says she had long suspected her late mother, who died when Polley was 11, may have had an affair that led to her conception.

But she didn’t know for sure until 2006, when a DNA test confirmed a man she had met almost by accident was her biological father.

Polley says she kept the information to herself for a year and revealed it to the father she grew up with after learning a journalist got wind of the secret.

The director of “Away From Her” and “Take This Waltz” says the story wasn’t published because she tearfully begged the journalist not to print it.

“My father’s response to this staggering piece of news was extraordinary,” Polley writes in the online post that’s dated Wednesday.

“He has always been a man who responds to things in unusual ways, for better or for worse. He was shocked, but not angry. His chief concern, almost immediately, was that my siblings and I not put any blame on my mother for her straying outside of their marriage.”

Polley says as more people heard of and discussed the revelation, she became fascinated with how stories take on a life of their own and decided to make a film about that concept.

“Making this film was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” she writes. “It took five years and tormented me. I didn’t want to make it, and I wanted to give up many times along the way, but I also didn’t want this story to be out there in the words of someone other than the many people who lived it.

“Now it will be written about in many other people’s words, and I’m finally at peace with that.”

Polley says she’s hoping to not do any press or interviews about the film until it’s released theatrically, and apologizes for her decision to do so.

But she notes she wants to let the doc “speak for itself” and hopes people will write about the project itself and not just the story it’s based on.

The NFB produced the doc, which will next screen at the Toronto International Film Festival that kicks of Sept. 6.