Stories We Tell – in pictures

Stories We Tell director Sarah Polley is seen here as a baby with her mother Diane, a complex, vivacious and ambitious woman who passed away before her time and left a string of mysteries behind. Photograph: Artificial Eye

Diane, a Canadian actor and casting director, on her wedding day to Sarah's father Michael, a British actor and insurance agent who once took acting classes with Albert Finney. Late in her life, Diane made a renewed bid for artistic success, appearing in the popular Canadian courtroom drama Street Legal. Photograph: Artificial Eye

In Stories We Tell, director Sarah Polley interviews her father Michael and her siblings to deliver a fascinating, vivid and entrancing "cine-memoir" of her parents' lives. What fuelled her mother to revive her acting career in her late 40s, and why do different members of her family have such varied memories of Diane? Photograph: Artificial Eye

Polley's movie uses a variety of techniques drawn from both dramatic and documentary schools of film-making, from genuine Super 8 video footage from her childhood to beautifully realised faux Super 8 reconstructions, to reveal the painful yet mesmeric truths hidden deep in her family's past. Photograph: Artificial Eye

Sarah Polley's parents Michael and Diane are at the centre of the actor-turned-film-maker's generous yet determined probe, which may also offer clues as to her own identity. Photograph: Artificial Eye

Polley is seen here with Harry Gulkin, an old colleague of her mother's whose version of the past complicates the story further, as ultimately detailed in Stories We Tell. Photograph: Artificial Eye

The director as a child with dad Michael. The decision to embark on the project that would become Stories We Tell stemmed from Polley’s long-term fascination with the connections that draw family members together. “Since I was about 19 or 20, I’ve been thinking about these things, which is why every short film I’ve ever made, as well as Away from Her and Take This Waltz, are about long-term relationships,” she says. Photograph: Artificial Eye