Cult of male genius holding female film-makers back, says Woman Unknown director
May el-Toukhy says we must end veneration of male directors that causes ‘structural problem’ for women
The enduring cult of male genius is keeping down female film-makers, one of the only two female directors in the running for the top prize at this year’s Venice film festival has warned.
“I’ve never ever read an article where a female director is promoted as a genius,” said the Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy, whose film Woman Unknown has been selected for the Golden Lion competition on the Lido this year.
“It’s not that I think I am one, but it’s just interesting that this is so systemic,” she added. “All of us are responsible for changing that discourse.”
El-Toukhy’s post-second world war period drama was the only film by a woman in the main competition when the line-up was announced in July. Since then, the festival directors have added the documentary NAZA, which is co-directed by Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by the Guardian.
A competition prize at Europe’s top festivals, Cannes, Venice and Berlin, is seen as a major door-opener for films seeking distribution deals around the world.
Those in the running for the top gong at the 83rd edition of the oldest film showcase include such feted veterans as Werner Herzog, Paul Schrader, Nanni Moretti, Martin McDonagh and Danny Boyle.
“After MeToo, all of us were really aware of this gender imbalance”, said el-Toukhy at a press conference on Sunday. “Something has happened over the course of the last couple of years, but we’re kind of returning to what it used to be.”
She added: “It’s a structural problem that I have encountered throughout my own career. [It was] very, very hard to get my first film done after graduating from film school. It took me six or seven years, whereas my male peers were much faster than me.”
Other major European festivals appear to be doing slightly better: at Cannes this year, five out of 22 films in the main competition were directed by women, and at the Berlinale seven out of 17 films were by female film-makers.
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Woman Unknown is the third feature by the Denmark-born director, whose 2019 film Queen of Hearts won the Nordic Council film prize, the most prestigious pan-Nordic film award. El-Toukhy is also the initiator of Dogma 25, a relaunch and update of the return-to-basics movement that brought forth directors such as Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg.
Set in the direct aftermath of Danish liberation from Nazi occupation, Woman Unknown tells the story of a young housemaid, Marie (Mathilde Arcel), who is about to marry her widowed employer but anxious about him discovering a shameful secret in her past: during the war, Marie had an intimate relationship with a German soldier.
El-Toukhy said the film grew out of research into the witch-hunt against female “horizontal collaborators”, and the realisation that “the female body during wartime is considered national territory”.
“My film is about the invisibility of women,” she said. “It’s about being objectified on one hand, and on the other hand being unseen and voiceless.” She conceded that the backlash against the lack of female directors on the Lido meant she was now probably “the most-known woman unknown at this festival”.
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