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NO MERCY - THE FEMALE GAZE

NO MERCY - DER GNADENLOSE BLICK

By Isa WILLINGER

TONDOWSKI FILMS - as PROD

Female director - Development 2021

Kira Muratova once said to me “the harshest films are made by women.” The East European cult director's
claim serves as a point of departure for a journey with the world’s greatest female directors, to speak with
them about vengeance, violence, the female gaze, and the urgent need to tell new stor

- Year of production
- 2021
- Genres
- Female director, Documentary
- Countries
- GERMANY, FRANCE, NETHERLANDS
- Languages
- GERMAN, FRENCH, ENGLISH
- Duration
- 90 mn
- Director(s)
- Isa WILLINGER
- Synopsis
- Ten years ago, I visited Kira Muratova in Odessa for a book I was writing about her work. “Women are slaves”
  she told me, “regardless which social structure, they're slaves.” She went on: “I'm often asked if I think men and
  women make different films. It was at the end of the 1980s and I was in Créteil for a women’s film festival at the time. Until then, I had always though it was stupid to think of women’s cinema as distinct to men’s. But then I saw a lot of harsh films in Créteil, nothing at all ladylike. Women are slaves, so they make vengeful films. They tell it like it is. In and of themselves, things have different names, affection, vulgarity... the women, whose films I saw, preferred things that were harsh.”
  Muratova's words surprised me, perhaps even shocked me a little and they've been with me ever since.
  Sadly, we can no longer ask Muratova directly, as she passed away two years ago. Instead, I'm setting off to
  meet some of the most important women film directors of our time, to talk about contemporary cinema, about vengeance and harshness. Are there certain stances among women directors, which are distinct to the male gaze, or the male perspective? Are such stances
  characterised by harshness? What other distinguishing features do they have? What makes them different?
  
  As a young woman filmmaker myself – now equipped with Muratova’s thesis – I set out in this film to ask if
  it’s true that women make the harsher films. Is there an extent to which they are marked, unconsciously, or
  consciously perhaps, by revenge? What other experiences do women directors bring to their films? How does this manifest in their films? Does the female gaze really exist?