Danish-Egyptian director May el-Toukhy halted the world premiere of her own film at the Venice Film Festival on Sunday night after subtitles fell out of sync, then watched “Woman Unknown” earn a seven-and-a-half-minute standing ovation once the screening resumed. El-Toukhy walked out of the auditorium as a phone rang somewhere in the room, and raised voices carried in from the corridor outside while spectators inside shushed each other.
She returned roughly five minutes later alongside producer Mikael Riek, who told the audience the film would rewind 15 minutes so it could play correctly. A handful of people left; most stayed. Her press team later confirmed that she and Riek had requested the subtitles be realigned and the screening restarted from the point where the translation began drifting.
“Woman Unknown,” a psychological drama set in Denmark during the summer of 1945, examines the treatment of women accused of fraternizing with German soldiers during the wartime occupation. Mathilde Arcel stars as a nanny whose past threatens to unravel her fragile place in postwar society. The Denmark-Sweden-Latvia co-production, backed by Nordisk Film with TrustNordisk handling international sales, is competing for the Golden Lion.
El-Toukhy is one of just two women directing films in this year’s competition lineup, a sharp drop from six a year earlier and the festival’s weakest showing for female representation in five years. She was the sole woman announced when the lineup came out in July, before “Neza” co-director Rachel Szor joined as a late addition. Speaking to reporters ahead of the premiere, el-Toukhy said she felt honored by the selection but troubled by the imbalance around her. “It tells us there’s still lots of work to do,” she said, describing the shortage of women in competition as a structural problem she has encountered throughout her career. “I’ve been the only woman in many, many settings.”
Festival chief Alberto Barbera curated this year’s 20-film competition slate, and jury president Maggie Gyllenhaal has separately questioned the scarcity of female directors in the lineup, calling it a systemic problem. From Venice, “Woman Unknown” travels next to the Toronto International Film Festival before opening in Danish theaters early next year.
