One hard blow catapults Sarah out of the ring and puts an end to her career as a martial arts athlete. She ends up being a
personal trainer in the luxury villa of a wealthy Jordanian businessman, teaching three young girls the basics of martial
arts. It doesn’t escape Sarah's senses that suppressed voices can be heard behind closed doors. In her second feature film,
MOON, Kurdwin Ayub explores the sparse options of female agency and its ruthless limitations.
The introduction to MOON features an impressive mixed martial arts fight scene where a female athlete who has enjoyed great
success is defeated. Was violence – both visible and invisible – one of the themes underpinning the screenplay of MOON from
the very start?
KURDWIN AYUB: I found it fascinating to focus on a protagonist who superficially wants violence, but in reality shies away from violence.
And there are other characters who want to flee from violence but sometimes accept it – and they aren’t afraid of it, either.
My film is about violence – inside, outside, on the surface, deep inside, or the sort that people pay for.
For the role of your protagonist, Sarah, you cast Florentina Holzinger, one of Austria's most renowned choreographers and
performance artists, whose work is known for her intense and disturbing examination of pain and the physical borderline experiences
of female bodies. Did her stage work inspire you in the development of your own material?
KURDWIN AYUB: When the idea for the film came about, I soon thought of Florentina Holzinger. Not because of the violence she displays in
her stage shows, but rather because of her own relationship to martial arts. I knew she practiced martial arts herself, and
very soon I reached the decision that she was the only person I wanted. I always think she's great in terms of her presence,
her nature, her sense of humour. I like to cast "real" personalities. So I'm less inspired by her shows and more by her as
an individual, by who she is, what she says. She has such a tough personality. I think she's one of the coolest people in
the world right now.
In terms of form, how powerful was the temptation to write a narrative in thriller style?
KURDWIN AYUB: I try to play with genre elements because they are used a lot in relation to this subject matter. I'm thinking of elements
like the white saviour, escape stories, horror... I wanted to employ all these elements in order to then subvert them. Stories
like that very often have happy endings which assume a naivety on the part of the audience, creating a kind of hope that everything
is easier than it is in reality. I wanted to tell the story in a real way, so I needed these elements to ironize or subvert
again and again. I often build up expectations... and then the expected doesn't happen, or something else happens.
MOON is above all the story of extremely lonely young women. Sarah and the sisters in Jordan have all become familiar with
attributes that are so much sought after today – being at the top in sports for Sarah, boundless wealth for the sisters. For
her and for them, this is associated with an existence in a cage. Did you also want to address the prison and the emptiness
behind these concepts?
KURDWIN AYUB: I have told the stories of a great many women who, no matter where they come from geographically or socially, end up stuck
in their own constructs or hopes of what they want to be. The girls in my film who live surrounded by wealth are also empty
in a way, and most probably Austria is not the perfect goal. They believe Sarah's life is better there. For Sarah, however,
it doesn't seem that way – and Sarah's sister, who is a young mother, also seems constantly dissatisfied. There are not so
many options for women: princess, fighter or mother. Everything isn’t always so fantastic.
Is MOON a feminist film?
KURDWIN AYUB: I do think it's a feminist film, but the term has such a melodramatic connotation. It’s intended to be an artistic film.
My film is about women and – to put it bluntly – about the prisons they’re in, some of which they also construct themselves
or believe they have to construct.
The option of freedom doesn’t seem to exist?
KURDWIN AYUB: Unfortunately, the film is more realistic than that. We live in a competitive system where everyone is against everyone else
and takes advantage of the other's weaknesses. I remember reading an Indian author who wrote about the workings of our capitalist
world. He says everyone is fighting each other in order to succeed, and the systems of patriarchy or racism can’t be fought
without fighting the original problem of capitalism. After all, humans want to survive. I find that striking and really terrible.
You can't say whether there will ever be hope. Maybe if you're born rich.
Sarah has to deal with a major sporting defeat at the beginning. Not a single smile escapes her throughout the whole film.
You’re never sure with her where the humour ends and the seriousness begins. Why do you make Sarah so inscrutable?
KURDWIN AYUB: The way I direct is not to change the characters and temperament of the people who portray my characters very much. The way
Sarah speaks, and also her kind of humour: that's Florentina. But not what Sarah says or what she does. I was able to guide
and steer things while we were filming, but there is still a bit of Florentina. Her tough body language was very important
for the character. You keep asking yourself: Does she like the sisters or doesn't she like them? I needed someone who wouldn’t
provide simple answers to the question of why she acts the way she does. And I wanted people to ask themselves again and again
– What is she doing now? That way a feeling of suspense is created.
How did you come to choose mixed martial arts as the discipline where the protagonist was a champion?
KURDWIN AYUB: I think I made that choice because it’s the most brutal form of martial arts. I liked that. And it's a sport that attracts
big male audiences. I also think mixed martial arts is an interesting sport because women always have to look a bit hot when
they fight each other. I find it incredible when women have to beat each other bloody in front of a predominantly male audience
and at the same time are expected to have perfectly operated breasts. In Europe, MMA is more of a marginal phenomenon as a
women's sport. It is much more common in the United States. There is also a lot of money involved in Las Vegas shows, but
the sport is only really lucrative in a major league. Sarah's opponent in the opening sequence of MOON is actually a German
UFC fighter, which is the top league. Overall, there aren’t very many female MMA fighters in German-speaking countries.
How did the characters of the sisters come about? How did you want to depict these girls?
KURDWIN AYUB: A first impression of the girls arises, then they turn out to be quite different. I want to play with the audience and their
expectations. The girls are mostly inspired by my cousins, the way they act, and also by myself. I think there’s a persona
of mine in every character in my films – after all, I wrote them. My characters are a mixture of the actresses and me, my
memories, my personal stories, my family. But I don't want to reveal anything more than that.
Andria Tayeh plays Nour, one of the sisters, and she is a well-known influencer as well as the star of a Netflix series. How
did you cast the Jordanian protagonists?
KURDWIN AYUB: Andria is an influencer and has starred in the Netflix series AlRawabi School for Girls. I really wanted to have native speakers
in Jordan, which was very difficult, because there are a lot of soap actors there, but that doesn't correspond at all to my
directing style, with improvisation. That's why I first looked around at what are known as "fresh faces", i.e. people who
don't have any experience on set. The casting process took a year; I flew back and forth several times with our casting director
Ulrike Putzer. Every time we chose someone, we would be ghosted, because the families didn't want them to be involved. It
was hard. At some point I developed an anxiety about loss and stopped believing anyone when they agreed to take part. Towards
the end, I decided on Andria. And from then on, the others stayed with the project, too. Maybe it also came across as weird
that we showed up as a European film team trying to cast young women. Casting the roles of the sisters was the most difficult
thing about the whole film project.
The role of the brother is also ambivalent: he is concerned about his sisters but at the same time keeps them in isolation.
Stringent rules are imposed upon Sarah, but she isn’t punished strictly for not adhering to them. How should he be perceived?
KURDWIN AYUB: He wants to fulfil one of his sisters’ wishes by arranging a personal trainer. And in terms of the criteria of his system,
in fact he’s a loving brother. He also suffers from the entire family situation. I wanted to cast someone who in no way corresponds
to the cliché of the "bad Arab man" and actually seems liberal in his own way, according to the American model. MOON is also
intended to show that Western women are allowed to do everything there and then leave again.
This film is characterized by a very elliptical narrative style: after some of the drastic experiences, we don’t experience
directly how the characters deal with them. Why do you often move on from powerful narrative moments without a direct echo?
How did you work on these gaps together with editor Roland Stöttinger?
KURDWIN AYUB: There are moments when I very deliberately don't show what happens immediately afterwards. Some of these omissions are in
the script, while others only came about in the editing room. Roland starts a rough edit while we are still shooting, and
then during the real editing process I usually come in once or twice a week, and we think about things together. We have very
similar ideas, Roland and I; we’re both very radical. I should also say that I don't know the feeling of having darlings that
I struggle to part with. I can cut away very hard.
How was it to work with the cast, especially Florentina Holzinger?
KURDWIN AYUB: We rehearsed many scenes together. Scenes that are not in the script, but similar scenes. I did that with the actresses playing
Nour, Fatima and Shaima, too, and also with Sarah's sister and friends. Everyone knew the story. But it was particularly important
to me that all the Jordanian cast should read the script closely and talk to me about it. They had to read it in the office
while I waited for them to finish, and then I would talk to them about it. I didn't want them to take it home and prepare
too much. Before the camera rolls, I tell them what to do, but the lines of dialogue emerge from their own way of speaking;
I don't dictate anything. Building on my actors’ improvisation, we then develop the scene. Everyone knows very clearly what
they are supposed to do. The most important thing is the casting. If everyone gets along well, then shooting also works. They
have to be really good and have something special to be cast. The shoot itself is usually easy.
After your debut film Sonne, now comes MOON. It suggests a trilogy of sun, moon and... maybe stars?
KURDWIN AYUB: It could also be the whole universe...
What are your thoughts about the trilogy? Do the sun and the moon have particular associations for you?
KURDWIN AYUB: The sun and moon are celestial bodies that have simply been suspended over us, unchanged, for millions of years, looking
down calmly on us, on us humans, who get up to all sort of crazy things in the brief time we exist. But to them, we are all
the same.
Interview: Karin Schiefer
July 2024
Translation: Charles Osborne
