No Mercy

„Frauen machen die harscheren Filme“, das äußerte einst die ukrainische Regisseurin Kira Muratowa ihr gegenüber. Was sich darunter vorstellen? Dieser Frage geht Willinger in NO MERCY nach. Mit Catherine Breillat, Alice Diop, Monika Treut und vielen anderen befragt sie Filmschaffende, die ausgewiesene Vertreterinnen der feministischen Perspektive sind. Aus ihren Aussagen setzt sich eine alternative Filmgeschichte zusammen, die zum einen gegen den „male gaze“ antritt. Der es zum anderen aber gelingt, aufrichtig vom Leben der Frauen im Patriarchat zu erzählen. Der Wahrheit ins Auge sehen, das kann eine recht harsche Erfahrung sein. (Alexandra Seitz)

In Anwesenheit von Isa Willinger.

“Women make the harsher films,” said Kira Muratova to her admirer Isa Willinger, who visited the Soviet (and later Ukrainian) director in Odesa at the end of Muratova’s film career and the beginning of her own. Having faced repeated censorship and various working bans from the Soviet Politburo, Muratova was a tough cookie herself. Muratova’s work struck more just a chord with Willinger, who subsequently set out to explore the alleged harshness of female filmmaking. What does “harshness” mean both in cinema and in reality? What defines female filmmaking? Do women see the world differently? And what about the much debated (and misused) “female gaze”? Through interviews with over a dozen directors—including Catherine Breillat, Virginie Despentes, Monika Treut, Ana Lily Amirpour, Alice Diop and Nina Menkes, NO 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. Interview excerpts and film clips are assembled like pearls on a string and held together by Willinger’s own voiceover commentary and reflections. (Anna Katharina Laggner)

Isa Willinger (Auswahl): PORNOPROTOKOLLE (2009), FORT VON ALLEN SONNEN (2013), HI, AI. LIEBESGESCHICHTEN AUS DER ZUKUNFT (2019), PLASTIC FANTASTIC (2023)