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