Danish director May el-Toukhy, the only woman with a film in Venice's main competition, returns with "Woman Unknown," a psychodrama set in post-Second World War Copenhagen that explores sexual shame and its punishment. The film follows Marie (Mathilde Arcel), a maid living a carefully controlled life as companion to her widowed employer Christian, whose past threatens to unravel when an old acquaintance recognises her. The Variety review finds the film provocative but somewhat predictable, praising Arcel's performance while questioning how effectively el-Toukhy's stylised approach interrogates its own themes.

The story draws on real accounts of women in Nazi-occupied countries who were publicly punished for sexual relationships with German soldiers, using this history to probe broader questions about the exposure and judgement of private lives. Marie hides a past involving a child she fled, and as her secret unravels—culminating in a swastika daubed on her door—the film intercuts her personal crisis with scenes of women being violently shamed in the streets. The review notes el-Toukhy's austere, symbol-heavy visual style, comparisons to films like "Hiroshima, Mon Amour" and "The Night Porter," and cinematography by Jasper Spanning that shifts from static wide shots to intense close-ups as Marie's situation deteriorates.