The true story behind “Women Talking”

Here’s the isolated Mennonite community that inspired the new film, “Women Talking.”

Transcript

00:00Women Talking follows a group of women in an isolated religious colony that face a series

00:04of sexual assaults, but we need to talk about the horrifying true story that inspired the new film.

00:09The movie starring Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, and Frances McDormand was adapted from the 2018 novel

00:14of the same name by Miriam Taves. The fictional story was inspired by actual events that took

00:18place in the Mennonite community of Manitoba Colony in Bolivia. The 2000 person remote

00:23religious community operates under strict ultra-conservative Christian beliefs and

00:27away from modern practices. In 2009, a group of men were convicted of sedating more than

00:31100 women with livestock anesthetic and sexually assaulting them. Due to their religious beliefs,

00:36the women thought something bad, something evil was happening in the colony, said Freddy Perez,

00:41prosecutor for the District of Santa Cruz. One night, a man was caught inside a home and then

00:45implicated seven others in the assaults. In 2011, seven of the men were sentenced to 25 years in

00:50prison. The eighth, who supplied the anesthetic drug, was given 12 years and has since been

00:54granted conditional release. Women Talking is set to hit theaters January 7th.