Venice Competition Filmmaker May El-Toukhy On Gender Imbalance: “I’ve Been The Only Woman In Many, Many Settings”
Danish director May el-Toukhy is competing at the Venice Film Festival with her psychological thriller Woman Unknown, but is one of only two women in the running for this year's Golden Lion. She told Deadline the near-total absence of female directors highlights a persistent structural problem in the film industry, from film-school opportunities and budgets through to how the media portrays male directors as "geniuses" while rarely affording women the same status.
Set in Denmark in the summer of 1945, Woman Unknown follows housemaid Marie, whose impending marriage to her wealthy employer is threatened by a secret from the war, as women who fraternised with German soldiers face public shaming. El-Toukhy, whose main-competition line-up initially included just one woman among 19 men before Rachel Szor's late addition, developed the film with writing partner Maren Louise Käehne after abandoning an earlier project on Denmark's Reformation-era witch hunts; it draws on academic research estimating that at least 50,000 Danish women had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation, though only a small number were actual collaborators.
In short
- El-Toukhy is one of just two female directors in Venice's Golden Lion race
- She says gender imbalance in film is a longstanding structural problem
- Her thriller Woman Unknown explores post-WW2 punishment of Danish women
Steelman: both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
El-Toukhy’s account supports the view that women directors face structural barriers: unequal access to training and budgets, fewer chances to lead major productions, and media narratives that more readily cast men as creative geniuses. The fact that women make up only two of this year’s Golden Lion contenders may be seen as evidence that the imbalance persists despite women’s talent and experience.
The case against
A small number of women in one festival competition does not, by itself, establish that the selection reflects industry-wide discrimination; the line-up may result from the particular films submitted and judged that year. A critic of the structural-barrier claim could argue that fair progress depends on assessing individual work and addressing demonstrated obstacles, rather than treating representation in a single contest as proof of their cause.
Explained simply
The Venice Film Festival is an annual international film event where selected films compete for the Golden Lion, its top prize. May el-Toukhy is a Danish filmmaker whose film Woman Unknown is set in Denmark just after the Second World War and centres on the public treatment of women who had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation.
El-Toukhy has spoken about the small number of women directing films in the competition, linking it to wider differences in opportunities, funding and recognition across the film industry. Her comments concern who gets the chance to make films and whose work is treated as significant.