{"id":134793,"date":"2025-10-20T22:07:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:07:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134793\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T22:07:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T22:07:09","slug":"do-women-make-harsher-films-isa-willinger-interview-on-no-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/134793\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Women Make Harsher Films? Isa Willinger Interview on ‘No Mercy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cWomen make the harsher films.\u201d Kira Muratova<\/a>, the pioneering Soviet, and later Ukrainian, filmmaker made that comment when German director Isa Willinger (Hi, AI. Love Stories From the Future; Plastic Fantastic) just started her career and visited her in Odesa toward the end of Muratova\u2019s career. But the thought stuck with Willinger, the author of a monograph on Muratova.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd she dives deep to explore it in her third feature documentary, No Mercy, which recently premiered at Filmfest Hamburg and screens at Austria\u2019s Viennale<\/a> this week, Thursday and Friday, before traveling to DOC NYC<\/a> for its North American premiere Nov. 13, and following screenings.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhat does \u2018harshness\u2019 mean, both in cinema and in reality? What defines female filmmaking?\u201d asks a synopsis on the Viennale\u2019s festival<\/a> website. \u201cDo women see the world differently? And what about the much-debated (and misused) \u2018female gaze\u2019?\u201d Willinger\u2019s film essay, which she narrates herself, features interviews with more than a dozen directors, including Virginie Despentes, C\u00e9line Sciamma<\/a>, Catherine Breillat, Alice Diop<\/a>, Joey Soloway<\/a>, Monika Treut, Ana Lily Amirpour, Apolline Traor\u00e9 and Nina Menkes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNo Mercy weaves together a tapestry of personal narratives, including accounts of real-life violence, which intertwine with professional reflections on power structures and how women carve out spaces to establish distinct cinematic languages or whole new qualities of harshness,\u201d concludes the synopsis.<\/p>\n

\n\tWillinger talked to THR\u2018s global business editor Georg Szalai about her cinematic deep dive, the lineup of filmmakers she managed to talk to, and what\u2019s next for her.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou mention early on in No Mercy that comment from Kira Muratova to you about female filmmakers having a harsher approach. Can you talk a little bit about that experience and how much this comment made you think right away or how you returned to it later in your career as a key question?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tDefinitely, the\u00a0question about perspectives in cinema and how some films by certain women directors touched me in a particular and more complete\u00a0way, or\u00a0touched spaces in\u00a0me\u00a0that\u00a0hadn\u2019t\u00a0been really\u00a0spoken to before, was an experience I had when I was a university student. When I discovered the films of Kira\u00a0Muratova\u00a0at the beginning of my 20s, I realized that they were so different. There is a woman talking to me somehow, even though\u00a0her films are\u00a0not\u00a0overtly feminist.\u00a0But yet, there was a different sort of perspective,\u00a0a different way\u00a0she treated female characters, even though\u00a0I\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0really put my finger on what exactly it was.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Later,\u00a0I interviewed\u00a0Muratova, and when she made this statement about women\u2019s cinema, I thought it was funny, because\u00a0toughness or harshness in films by women as their\u00a0main\u00a0trait\u00a0was\u00a0unexpected\u00a0to me.\u00a0She caught me by surprise, I think, but\u00a0I also had many more questions about her film language, and so\u00a0I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0inquire further.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But,\u00a0yeah,\u00a0it\u00a0kind of stuck\u00a0with me. And so, years later, when I was thinking\u00a0we are missing a documentary on women directors, I thought, what could the angle be?\u00a0I remembered: \u201cDidn\u2019t Muratova\u00a0say something\u00a0about women\u2019s cinema\u00a0that was provocative and interesting? And I went back to look for it in the interview, because I couldn\u2019t\u00a0quite\u00a0remember the way she said it exactly. And I found it and then proposed it to my commissioning editor.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAnd you got the green light right away?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was sure she would decline.\u00a0First of all, Kira\u00a0Muratova\u00a0is not a household name.\u00a0Second of all, this observation of hers, or hypothesis,\u00a0seemed\u00a0so far out that I thought they would never do that. But the opposite happened.\u00a0The commissioning editor, Anne-Kathrin Brinkmann,\u00a0loved it, and her colleagues loved it. And then, it became\u00a0this\u00a0film.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSo, was No Mercy commissioned for TV or a streamer?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIn Germany and most European countries, theatrical or feature documentaries are usually\u00a0co-produced and co-financed with television.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tIsa Willinger<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Andreas M\u00fcller<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lineup of filmmakers you talked to for No Mercy is impressive. How easy or difficult was it to get all these names in front of the camera?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was\u00a0actually not\u00a0easy to get these women.\u00a0First of all, film directors love to be in control of movies, and they know what it means to not be in control. So,\u00a0some\u00a0declined because they did not want to be in front of a camera.\u00a0I think\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0even more so with women. I think with men, it\u00a0probably would\u00a0have been a bit easier, because men tend to like to hear themselves talk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDammit, I recognize myself in that\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAnd\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0not\u00a0a bad thing.\u00a0Women often should be\u00a0more sure\u00a0of themselves and happy to be out there. But\u00a0yeah, it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0easy, but we got a lot of the directors that I had on my list, so\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0super happy with the cast we got in the end. It took a lot of emailing, calling agents, calling this or that producer. It was a long process.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou could probably do a sequel with such names as Coralie Fargeat<\/a> and Julia Ducournau<\/a> and others, if they are not too busy\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s another challenge: some of them are so busy. I\u00a0also tried Julia\u00a0Ducournau, but she never responded. It was a pity, because as I was working on the film,\u00a0Titane\u202fcame out in Cannes, and it\u00a0seemed to affirm\u00a0something about what we were talking about.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere do you stand right now on the question of whether female filmmakers make harsher movies? I loved that you feature different voices and opinions in No Mercy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI think\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0one of the strengths of the movie to not give you a clear answer.\u00a0I decided I wanted a\u00a0playful approach to the topic.\u00a0We\u2019re\u00a0circling that question and looking at it from different angles, from a historical angle at one point, from a sociological angle at another point.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a0what I really like about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s\u00a0also important for this topic because\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0so easy to fall into the trap of saying, \u201cOh, women are like this or like that,\u201d\u00a0like,\u00a0\u201cThey\u2019re not loving, they\u2019re actually super tough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s\u00a0a generalization,\u00a0whereas\u00a0in reality, humans are extremely multifaceted and can be so many things. So,\u00a0the\u00a0important thing about this film is\u00a0maybe to\u00a0open up\u00a0spaces of imagination and unhinge certain clich\u00e9s or stereotypes we have in our minds.\u00a0That opening\u00a0up is important.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy has Muratova been so influential for you, and how easy is it to find her films?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tShe was very well known in the Soviet Union. She was one of the most important, or\u00a0maybe the\u00a0most important, woman director in the Soviet Union and one of the big names of Soviet auteur cinema, along with [Andrei] Tarkovsky and [Alexander] Sokurov and [Sergei]\u00a0Parajanov, and yet, she is more forgotten than the other people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That has\u00a0several reasons. Her films are\u00a0very hard\u00a0to find with subtitles. Also probably because she was a woman director, and there\u00a0has\u00a0not\u00a0been\u00a0as much of a spotlight on\u00a0women\u00a0artists. Another part of the reason was that she\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0really like interacting much with the public or promoting her work. She always said that as a director, she wanted to disappear behind her films.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAlso, she was in\u00a0Odesa,\u00a0Ukraine. She\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0in\u00a0the capitals,\u00a0Kiev\u00a0or\u00a0Moscow, the big centers of Soviet and Russian filmmakers.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat speaks to you when you watch her films?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tFirst of all, it\u2019s her humor. It\u2019s\u00a0an absurd, grotesque\u00a0humor.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0actually not\u00a0so common in women\u2019s filmmaking to be so grotesque. She also has a particularly striking visuality. She loves images,
but\u00a0the beauty\u00a0in her films\u00a0is always\u00a0very eccentric.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWomen and the love of images \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0an interesting topic anyway. Back when\u00a0I read Laura Mulvey\u2019s famous examination of the male gaze, that spectacle in front of the camera for the male pleasure of looking,\u00a0I found it quite sexist.\u00a0Of course,\u00a0I appreciate Mulvey for all she did for feminist film theory, yet why can women not\u00a0be\u00a0considered\u00a0to have\u00a0that\u00a0same\u00a0pleasure of looking? And in Kira\u00a0Muratova\u2019s\u00a0films, I found that pleasure of merely looking, looking at funny things, grotesque things, colorful things.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0like a circus.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNo Mercy<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy of Viennale<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you consider yourself a feminist<\/strong> or<\/strong> feminist filmmaker?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI would call myself a feminist in general.\u00a0I guess anything I do then is, in a way, feminist, even though\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not the\u00a0topic\u00a0in each one of my films.\u00a0Yet\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0always there in the way you choose your protagonist and the way you treat them, and so on.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0always part of it. I mean, being a feminist is\u00a0actually\u00a0being\u00a0a humanist.<\/p>\n

\n\tGiven all the debate around AI, I wanted to ask you about your 2019 film Hi, AI. Love Stories From the Future, which focused on relationships between humans and humanoid robots. What\u2019s your perspective on AI?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m\u00a0still super interested in AI.\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0actually developing\u00a0a new project on AI right now, on\u00a0AI safety questions. Regarding filmmaking, it\u2019s clear that AI is going to pose a huge danger to every aspect of filmmaking. Already, animators are losing their jobs because\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0now done by AI, and soon, everything can be done perfectly by AI.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe big question is: Do we let it happen? Or do we pull the brakes and say, \u201cHey, we still can make decisions.\u201d We can make decisions and create laws, and say, \u201cWe\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want this. We\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0want all these people losing their jobs and losing a sense of meaning\u00a0with them.\u201d If all that creative work gets lost to AI,\u00a0that\u2019ll\u00a0be a huge cultural crisis of loss of meaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIs there anything else you would like to highlight?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tNo Mercy is also a film about violence. Violence against women is\u00a0actually on\u00a0the rise. For a couple of years, the statistics that\u00a0are\u00a0coming out\u00a0show\u00a0more violence, more rapes, more murders, femicides. In Germany, every day, one woman is being murdered by her husband, boyfriend, whatever.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u00a0happens in\u00a0No Mercy\u202fis\u00a0that we\u00a0talk about these things, yet we\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0talk about them through victimhood. We talk about them through an angle of agency,\u00a0of strength, of empowerment, of\u00a0retaliation and\u00a0shooting back, but mostly\u00a0of\u00a0shooting back with a camera.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWomen make the harsher films.\u201d Kira Muratova, the pioneering Soviet, and later Ukrainian, filmmaker made that comment when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[80459,80461,80460,18,117,19,1452,17,80462,80463,327],"class_list":{"0":"post-134793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-alice-diop","9":"tag-coralie-fargeat","10":"tag-cu00e9line-sciamma","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-international","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-joey-soloway","17":"tag-julia-ducournau","18":"tag-movies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}