Venice director decries cult of male genius in cinema

May el-Toukhy, the Danish director of *Woman Unknown*, used her platform at the Venice Film Festival to challenge what she calls the enduring cult of male genius in cinema, according to the Guardian. Speaking as one of only two female directors in contention for the festival's top prize, el-Toukhy said the veneration of male directors creates a structural problem that keeps women out of the industry's highest ranks.

The director told the Guardian she has never encountered an equivalent reverence for female film-makers, describing the imbalance as a systemic issue rather than a matter of individual talent. Her comments arrive mid-festival, as Venice screens a competition slate that critics have noted remains heavily weighted toward established male auteurs.

El-Toukhy's remarks sharpen a debate that has followed the festival for years, as the foreign press has repeatedly measured the gender gap among the directors invited to compete on the Lido. The Guardian's coverage notes that of the films vying for the Golden Lion this year, only two are directed by women — a figure that underscores the persistence of the pattern el-Toukhy describes, even as festivals elsewhere have pledged greater parity.

Her film, *Woman Unknown*, is set in postwar Copenhagen and follows a nanny who marries into a prosperous household as accused Nazi sympathisers face violent public shaming. In a separate review, the Guardian called the drama-thriller an elegantly appointed study of sexual shame and political paranoia, praising its Du Maurier-like touches and its shrewd, painful portrait of survival. The film's themes of complicity and social pressure give el-Toukhy's festival remarks a pointed resonance: her critique of cinema's power structures echoes the film's own examination of how communities police and punish.

The director's intervention is the latest in a festival conversation that has included Wim Wenders clarifying his earlier, controversial comments about film-makers and politics. Wenders told reporters in Venice that he does not believe directors should stay out of political engagement, walking back remarks from earlier this year that warned against films entering the political field. Together, the two directors' statements frame a festival where the role of cinema — as art, as politics, as an industry — is itself under scrutiny.

For Italian audiences and the international critics gathered in Venice, el-Toukhy's words carry weight beyond the Lido. Italy's own film culture has long celebrated the figure of the male auteur, from the neorealists to the arthouse giants of the postwar era, and the foreign press has frequently noted how rarely Italian women directors reach the same platforms. The Guardian's report does not name Italian examples, but the structural critique el-Toukhy describes resonates in a national cinema whose most celebrated names remain predominantly male.