A Woman's Tale is a 1991 Australian film directed by Paul Cox and starring Sheila Florance, Gosia Dobrowolska, Norman Kaye, Chris Haywood, Max Gillies and Ernie Gray.
Her love of life leads to an ambivalence about her age; her unique moral code leads to her playing cupid for her friend and nurse Anna and Anna's married lover Peter; her worrisome son Jonathan wants her to move into a home; her neighbour Billy has dementia.
She wanted to star in a movie and Cox devised the idea, inspired by the story of a woman whose house burned down.
There was no sentimentality or anything on her part—she was an incredible woman—but she said jokingly, “There is still time to turn me into a star, but let's be quick.” I went home and spent three days and three nights writing the script and then with Barry Dickins and Sheila we did another draft.
"[3] In August 1990, Florence took a draft of the script with her to England, where she was doing a tour due to her popularity in Prisoner.
She became critically ill and was in hospital; she received last rites, but recovered after some operations and returned to Australia to make the film.
We had no insurance, in fact, after I completed the film I had to sell my house in a hurry otherwise I would have gone totally bankrupt.
"[9] Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote "I’ve never been much of a Paul Cox fan, but this 1991 feature... is rather special, largely because Cox regular Sheila Florance who, like the character she plays, was dying of cancer over the course of the film is magnificent.
Affirmative without being sentimental, this is a deeply absorbing movie with no false notes or wasted motion.
[citation needed] Cox called it one of his favourite films: It's a homage to a very great and wonderful human being, Sheila Florance.