Danish filmmaker May el-Toukhy, one of the two female directors competing for the Golden Lion this year, in Venice with a sharp, searing analysis of the women thrown to the wolves in the aftermath of World War II.
Women Unknown — Scandinavian in both its aesthetic and precision — was always going to be about class, complicity and survival. For a brief period, it was even going to focus on the Reformation witch hunts, before el-Toukhy found herself a little bored by the perpetrators. “The reasons they were hunting these women were just not that interesting,” she laughs to The Hollywood Reporter.
Inspired by a newspaper picture dated from the 1940s of a woman sitting with a swastika painted on her back, el-Toukhy and co-writer Maren Louise Käehne soon turned their attention to the women whose bodies became a battlefield during the Second World War; those who found themselves with no choice but to fall into the arms of soldiers from occupying armies, and suffered severe consequences — hunted down, publicly shamed and punished for the rest of their lives.
Woman Unknown is backdropped by a Danish city free from Nazi occupation, mere months after World War II has ended. It tells the story of Marie (Mathilde Arcel), a young nanny and housemaid about to marry her wealthy, older, and widowed employer, Christian (Carsten Bjørnlund). But Marie guards a shameful secret. During the war, she was in an intimate relationship with a German soldier. Now Marie’s past threatens to catch up with her, and she is forced to do everything in her power to preserve her new status as lady of the house in post-war anarchy.
It is as much about resistance and patriotism in a euphoric, liberated Europe as it is about the chastisement of women and their sex lives. El-Toukhy is adamant that this is a story about the female experience. “There have been so many films about the Second World War, and that is true. But they’re all based mostly on men’s experiences and recollections of war. So that really energized me,” she says. “Let’s just do another 100 films about the women in this time period, and then we can say we’re over and done with it, you know?”
A co-production between Denmark, Sweden and Latvia, financing the film wasn’t the tallest hurdle — but el-Toukhy has learned to be economical with her resources at a time when filmmaking costs have never higher. With her third feature film, following Long Story Short (2015) and Queen of Hearts (2019), she comes to the Lido buoyed by the hope that Woman Unknown will produce debate. El-Toukhy spoke to THR about the far-and-wide casting search for Marie, why she feels she’s already won before even stepping foot in Italy and whether those nerves have begun to kick in: “I’ve worked 16 hours a day for more than a year. I’ve spent all my savings. I’ve used every part of me to make this film and all the resources, all the muscle power I have. I can’t really do any more, so therefore I feel okay.”
I’m curious about this period of Danish history, and whether you learned about it at school. Why use it as a backdrop for this film?
After my last film, I thought I was going to do a film on the witch hunts after the Reformation, in the middle of [the] 1500s, and so I started researching that subject matter. But I found it quite hard to engage with the perpetrators because the reasons they were hunting these women were just not that interesting. (Laughs.) At that time, me and my co-writer were slowly moving away from that idea, and then while we were moving away from that idea, some photos got republished in the newspaper with a woman who was sitting on a bench with a swastika painted on her back. And she [had been] assaulted in these photographs. Those [were] the propaganda photos that were produced in 1943. So we were reminded of that issue.
It is something that we do learn in school here. It’s part of the curriculum — to deal with the First World War, Second World War, the events between the two wars and the aftermath, but often the aftermath here, in schools, would be focused on the politics, the collaboration the Danish government chose at that time and also the resistance movement. We didn’t spend too much time in school dealing with or talking about [or] debating the destiny of these women. I’m always interested in investigating something that takes a lot for me to engage in; that’s difficult material. Where there’s no black and white, but everything is gray.
And you chose to depict that woman in that photograph in the film.
Yeah. In the propaganda photos, they were reproducing this image of a woman who has been assaulted, but then when I started digging, [I found] an archive [of them]… I think what’s interesting about the situation itself is it’s a societal, structural mob mentality. It’s fellow citizens who are punishing these women. It doesn’t come from the government. The government actually tried to remove these women from the streets — to protect them — but they didn’t manage very well. And sometimes, even on the way to a camp, a woman would be assaulted, even though she was supposed to be protected by the government. For me, it was quite important to really show an audience what this feels like. They didn’t get killed, these women, but their souls were hurt and they were stigmatized and traumatized for life.
How did you find your way to Marie as a character, and her story?
I think there’s a class aspect in the story that I’m very drawn to, and also I had that thematic base in my last film. She’s a young woman who is moving away from the area she knows and her family and takes a job in a big city. [She] probably feels protected by living in a big city compared to being at home where she can be more exposed. She’s a woman who is struggling to survive. I might not agree with some of her actions, but I completely understand where that survival instinct comes from, and the idea that she wants to protect what she’s fought to obtain.
What went into that casting search for Marie, and why was Mathilde right for it? As the title suggests, she’s very elusive for much of the film, up until her unraveling.
I always have quite extensive casting processes, partly because I come from theater, but also because I really enjoy [it]. Casting a lead is, for me, like casting a creative partner. So I have to fall in love with the gaze of that person and their take on the character, and therefore I do many rounds and many callbacks. I did that with Mathilde as well, and some of it was improv, some of it was table readings, some of it was written scenes. I think what’s fantastic about Mathilde is that she has so much mystery to her and the way she’s chosen to interpret the character inspired me as a writer-director. That collaboration is key for me, and therefore I spend a lot of time figuring out which direction I want to go [in]. I’ve really enjoyed working with her, and I think she’s extremely talented.
So mysterious but so expressive too.
Yes, yes.
One of the themes that stood out to me was complicity and what it means to be complicit when that head-down mentality is still so entrenched and the hangover of the war so menacing. What were you trying to speak to in this context?
The film is not so much [about] giving answers to what’s right and wrong, but to debate what’s right and wrong, or what’s possibly right and what’s possibly wrong. It’s all a bit murky and muddy. Throughout the development of the film, it’s been quite important for me to to not tell the audience — or the readers, in the development of the script — what they should think, but create a situation where the audience can dive into that discussion with themselves or the people they’ve watched the film with.
And it’s not only in that time, because I think it’s present also today — in many conflicts. It’s quite hard to to say that it’s just one thing, and the ability to contain two opposite thoughts at the same time is quite hard. Both can be true, and that’s my ambition with the film. Obviously, I have my own opinion about what’s going on in the film, but I think it’s quite important for me as a storyteller that there is room for reflection for the audience.
It’s also very much a female-driven story. Do you think this is a period of history for women that isn’t depicted on screen enough? Is it an underrepresented story you’re telling?
When I first started the process of developing the script with my co-writer, I would pitch the idea when people ask me: “What are you doing? What are you working on right now?” I started to semi-pitch it, just to see how people would react and what they respond to. And I could see that they would glaze over. (Laughs.) They would have this empty gaze, because I think there have been so many films about the Second World War, and that is true. But they’re all based mostly on men’s experiences and recollections of war. So that really energized me.
Yes, there have been a lot of films about this period [of history], but let’s just do another 100 films about the women in this time period, and then we can say we’re over and done with it, you know? The invisibility of women is everywhere, and certainly in cinema and in our films. So I don’t think we’re finished with the period, but it also sparked the idea of trying to make this film look different than a classical period piece, and to constantly disrupt the idea of a classical period piece. So that’s been an ongoing process of developing and shooting and in post[-production].
How long did it take you to get this film off the ground? I know it’s a co-production which must have helped.
The process has been long, but not too long. I did my last film, then once it had premiered at Sundance and had the festival run and premiered in Denmark, I started to develop this film — first with the witch idea and then turning to these horizontal collaborators. Then COVID happened… I worked intensively on the script, and we [were in a place where we] could start the financing. But the financing part of it hasn’t been that difficult in the sense that we’ve had a lot of yeses. We’ve had so many people wanting to do this film. The problem in European cinema is that we don’t get very far with the money we get. There’s been an increase of costs after COVID, everything has gone up, and so we have to work faster in every part of the process. That’s been the challenge with this film, not so much getting the money, but getting far enough with the money we managed to get.
What did it mean to you to find out this would be premiering in competition in Venice?
I’m delighted that it’s part of this historic festival and that also this theme gets to be exposed for a European audience. I think it’s very important that we keep reminding ourselves of our past and these stories, so that we understand and we analyze and we debate to be able to handle the present and the future differently — if possible. I don’t think it is. But I’m really happy, [Venice is] the best place to be for European film right now.
I’m excited. I have this place inside of me where I can go after I’ve made a film. I’ve spent all the time I possibly could on this film. I’ve worked 16 hours a day for more than a year. I’ve spent all my savings. I’ve used every part of me to make this film and all the resources, all the muscle power I have. I can’t really do any more, so therefore I feel okay. Slightly anxious, and I think that’s only natural.
There must be a really liberating feeling of finally being able to send it out into the world.
Yeah. And I think getting into the festival and being in competition, I’ve already won.
How can exposure in Venice help a filmmaker like yourself and your career?
[Festivals are] important for the arthouse [films] because it’s a market. It’s also a place where you, as a filmmaker, can create new relationships that you can build on later down the line. But for me, it’s really about the audience that’s there. Through a festival, you can access an audience if you have enough buyers that take the film and they then distribute it around the world. And I think it’s quite important for me as a filmmaker to cling on to [the audience], because it’s so easy to be distracted by other things that are equally nice and shiny and attractive. But especially the way we finance film in Scandinavia, where it’s publicly funded, I think it’s really important that these films find their audience. None of us have that crystal ball where we can look into it and say, “Okay, if I put this person into a film with this theme and shoot…” But that’s really the hope for me, that this film will find its audience.
Are you already thinking about the next one?
I can’t help thinking about the next and the next and the next, especially when I go cycling or walking or hiking. But I don’t have that much spare time right now. So, most of my energy is channelled into promoting this film. I’m in the service of this film still.
The 2026 Venice Film Festival runs Sept. 2-12.
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