‘Woman Unknown’ Director May el-Toukhy Talks the Torment of World War II ‘Horizontal Collaborators’ and Venice’s Female Director Snub: ‘It’s a Structural Problem’

In “Woman Unknown,” May el-Toukhy takes a closer look at women accused of having relationships with German soldiers during World War II.

“When we started to build a story about a ‘horizontal collaborator,’ we realized that, during and after the war, the female body became part of national identity. But in Denmark, it wasn’t really explored.”

Initially, she wanted to make a film about the witch hunts after the Reformation in the 1500s.

“It was difficult to relate to the perpetrators because many of them were just maniac. And I’m interested in ambiguity,” she says. Then, she came across an old newspaper photo of a woman with a swastika painted on her back.

“You can find very similar stories that are thousands of years old. The shaving of a woman’s hair or her public shaming for ‘sharing’ her body is a very old concept. Even today, it’s still happening in many armed conflicts.”