Venice Golden Lion winner May el-Toukhy on Woman Unknown and her Egyptian roots

In the heart of Venice's Lido, Danish-Egyptian filmmaker May el-Toukhy received the Golden Lion for her film Woman Unknown on a sweltering afternoon. The 2019 Sundance audience award winner for Queen of Hearts and actress Mathilde Arcel, who played the lead role in Woman Unknown, also garnered the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. El-Toukhy, the sole woman directing a main competition entry solo at Venice, expressed her desire for more female colleagues in competition and hoped that both male colleagues and delegates would join the discussion to address the issue.

Woman Unknown, set in Denmark shortly after World War II, delves into the theme of punishment and guilt surrounding women who had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation. The film's protagonist, Marie, played by Arcel, is a nanny who marries her employer, a wealthy factory owner, unaware of his affair with a German soldier. El-Toukhy and co-writer Maren Louise Kaehne drew inspiration from photographs showing a woman publicly humiliated and branded with a swastika, which were used as propaganda.

The film explores the repercussions of exposing one's involvement with a German soldier, the impact on female bodies as battlegrounds, and Denmark's own reckoning with its conduct during the war. El-Toukhy's personal background as a Danish mother and Egyptian father's first-generation immigrant upbringing informed her narrative, emphasizing how others perceive and judge individuals based on their family heritage.