The roar of celebration is the first thing you hear. Then comes the slightly delayed sound of some 20 plastic flags rattling in the wind. And then you see them.

Between suitcases and hurried men in business attire, May el-Toukhy and Mathilde Arcel appear, each carrying a golden statuette. In the middle of the arrivals hall at Copenhagen Airport in Kastrup.

Both have just returned from the Venice Film Festival, where May el-Toukhy’s film ’Woman Unknown’ won the festival’s top prize. The film is about how, after World War II, the body became a battleground for Danish women who had relationships with German soldiers.

The film’s lead, Mathilde Arcel, also, in an extraordinary turn, won the award for best actress. The prize was awarded by a unanimous jury.

May el-Toukhy leads the way out into the airport and spots a head of curls that looks like her own.

»Come here, sweetheart«, she calls, and mother and daughter melt into an embrace, surrounded by journalists and publicists from Nordisk Film.

In May el-Toukhy’s hand is what has now secured her a place of honor in Danish film history: a Golden Lion. It is not only proof that ’Woman Unknown’ was the best film screened in Venice. It is also proof of how the 49-year-old Danish-Egyptian director has become a trailblazer in both Danish and international cinema.

»Hopefully, this award can inspire other young women who aspire to direct to believe that it’s possible to succeed as a female director«, May el-Toukhy says, and elaborates:

»That’s what representation can do. When I won a Robert as the first woman director, I didn’t think it was possible, because no one had done it before. But it was«.

A woman, but also much more

As May el-Toukhy juggles her bag, her Golden Lion, and the enormous bouquet she received from the Danish Film Institute on arrival, the conversation about her status as a woman director continues.

It is a conversation that has not quieted for a moment in the past few days.

With ’Woman Unknown’, she became the first woman director in 36 years to represent Denmark in the main competition in Venice, and the win made her only the second Danish recipient of the top prize after Carl Theodor Dreyer in 1955. She was also one of just two women directors nominated for the award at all. Out of 21.

»We have a structural problem in the industry, and we have to talk about it if we’re going to solve it. Otherwise, nothing changes«, says May el-Toukhy, who in Venice also told Deadline that she has never heard a woman director described as a genius – unlike many male filmmakers.

At the same time, she still finds herself surprised when she is asked, again and again, about her gender.

»The first question I got at the press conference after the win yesterday was about the fact that I’m a woman. And it’s an important conversation, and I’m not tired of it. But I’m also a craftsperson, a filmmaker, and a lot of other things. My male colleagues, by contrast, were asked about their work and what artistic choices they had made«.

The jury needed special permission

Behind May el-Toukhy, Mathilde Arcel comes walking in. It is her family that has staked out a spot in the waiting area with Danish flags and bottles of champagne. She moves through the crowd, hugging, thanking, and thanking and thanking a thousand times over.

The award for best actress does not come with a Golden Lion, but with a strikingly large gold cup, one that could just as well serve as the Holy Grail in a Catholic church or as a soccer trophy.

»Let me set it down for a second, it’s pretty heavy«, she says, adjusting her round glasses after greeting her family.

»It feels completely insane to be standing here. Last night I lay there scrolling through the list of previous winners and got so moved. It’s like I’m in another world now«, she says.

She has only a couple hours of sleep to her name. The night was spent at an afterparty where members of the festival jury were present, among others. They told Mathilde Arcel that it had required not just a unanimous vote, but also special permission from the festival director for the 30-year-old Dane to receive the award for best actress. Normally, a film can receive only one prize in Venice – unlike at the Oscars, for instance.

That only made Mathilde Arcel even prouder.

And then the night was spent taking photos.

»A hell of a lot of them, actually. Everyone wanted me to kiss that stupid cup, so I did. And now I’m proud of it. I’m so excited to see what doors it can open for me. But I definitely want to work abroad«, she says.

A call to the industry

May el-Toukhy, too, is eager to see how such a gold-covered animal from the savanna can serve as a master key to open doors. For her, though, it is not a longing for Hollywood’s star-studded boulevards that looms largest.

Instead, it is a reckoning with the Danish film industry.

»What matters to me is making films on terms that don’t break me. The way we do it in Denmark can mean that directors break under it – because everything has to move so fast, and we aren’t allowed to make the big artistic projects«, May el-Toukhy says.

She believes the process of producing ’Woman Unknown’ was flat-out unsustainable. It took a huge toll and was shot, among other things, around the clock in a small studio in Latvia. The future has to look different, she says. And she bears responsibility for helping make that happen.

»It’s a wake-up call to ourselves. We’re all sitting here discussing how we can do it differently, so we have more time to develop our films. So we can make things that are distinctive, and not just churn out product«.

More money would, as always, be nice, she says. But she doubts it is coming, and so the film industry itself has to start looking inward.

»We’re already doing that, and I’m going to keep doing it«, May el-Toukhy says.