Female MMA athlete takes fight to Jordan in new Kurdwin Ayub film

Making provocative movies is 'not easy stuff' says Iraqi-born Austrian filmmaker who puts cultural identity to the test and receives hate mail

A still from the film Mond. Photo: Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion

“I never win,” sighs Kurdwin Ayub, the Iraqi-born, Austrian filmmaker whose new movie Mond (Moon) is playing in competition this week at the Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah. Perhaps that sounds defeatist, but even getting an independent movie made is a victory by most standards.

Ayub faced difficulties with her first feature in 2022. Sonne (Sun) tells the story of a Kurdish teen, Yesmin, born in Vienna to Iraqi parents, whose religious and cultural identity is tested when a video she makes with her non-Muslim friends goes viral.

Sonne won Ayub a Best First Feature award at the Berlin Film Festival. “Sun is about the migrant girl with her Kurdish family, from her perspective, living life in Austria and Moon is the other way around,” explains Ayub, who admits she experienced “threatening” hate-mail from Islamic extremists in the aftermath of Sun’s release. And for Mond, about a female Austrian MMA fighter who comes to Jordan, she’s had complaints “from the woke leftists”, she says. “I make provocative films. It’s not easy stuff, and people always have to say something about that.”

Such is life when you’re a straight-shooting filmmaker attracted to controversial subject matter. “It’s not easy,” she tells The National. “At times everybody says, ‘yeah, you’re brave, you’re doing provocative stuff.’ But sometimes that’s hard because in that moment you get some hate.”

Perhaps it’s no surprise that she’s drawn fire given the company she keeps: Ayub’s film is produced by Ulrich Seidl, the Austrian provocateur behind the Paradise trilogy, Dog Days and Import Export.

In Moon, which grabbed a special jury prize when it premiered at the Locarno Film Festival earlier in the year, Florentina Holzinger plays Sarah, an MMA fighter who has just been defeated in her latest bout. Bloodied and battered, she retreats to lick her wounds. And when a job offer comes in from businessman Abdul (Omar Almajali), she accepts, heading to Amman where she’s installed in a slick-but-soulless hotel. Every day she’s driven to a luxury house on the outskirts, where she trains young siblings Nour (Andria Tayeh), Shaima (Nagham Abu Baker) and Fatima (Celina Antwan).

When Ayub introduced the movie to the Saudi audience on Wednesday evening, she proclaimed it to be “an unusual film”, a statement that it’s easy to be sceptical about. But even lifting the lid on the world of female MMA fighters is something rarely seen on screen. “I was interested in MMA because this sport is different than other martial arts,” says Ayub. “It's the toughest one.”

Still, the real rub comes when Sarah discovers that all is not as it seems with the shady family where she’s made to sign an NDA and not use social media when she’s with the sisters. What follows is an awakening as Sarah comes to realise these siblings need help in a hugely controlling patriarchal clan. “I just wanted her to trip over something which she’s not allowed to see,” says Ayub.

Actress Nagham Abu Baker and Kurdwin Ayub at the Red Sea International Film Festival. Getty Images

So what inspired this aspect of the screenplay? “There are some stories,” the director says, cautiously, before saying she can’t reveal her sources. “There are a lot of expats coming to rich families. I mean, you probably know that expats are living in these countries. And I found it interesting that the European person is coming and getting this money and seeing all that stuff and going away again. So it’s a phenomenon in our world, I think. And I wanted to show it.”

The film doesn’t just point the finger at Jordanian society. Early on, Sarah is hanging with her ignorant Austrian friends, who are incredulous that she might spend time in a society where “oppressed” women wear hijabs. I wonder what she thought the Saudi audience last night might think of that exchange. “I hope they see racist Austrians, right?”

One of the things that really impresses in Moon is the casting. Holzinger is so good, complete with a cauliflower ear (all make-up, I am assured), that it’s easy to believe that she’s a genuine MMA fighter.

Florentina Holzinger plays Sarah, an MMA fighter who gets hired by a wealthy family in Amman. Photo: Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion

“It's a passion of mine, that it has to be real,” Ayub explains. “And the cast is good, because we do a lot of improvisation. I wanted to have the most special women and men for the characters of the family. We all know each other, trust each other, because they are also a big influence on the story.”

Ayub also took inspiration from Seidl and his wife Veronika Franz, who recently co-directed acclaimed period horror The Devil’s Bath, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. “Ulrich was really free. He let me do whatever I want,” she says.

The real question is how will the film play in Jordan? She hopes Moon will screen at the Amman International Film Festival. How does she feel people there will react?

“I don’t know,” she sighs, again. “The progressive people would really love it, the conservative probably not.”

Mond screens at the Red Sea International Film Festival on Saturday at 10pm