‘Europa’ Director Sudabeh Mortezai on How the Film Explores the Disconnect Between Corporate ‘Wokewashing’ and Neoliberal Exploitation
variety.comTara Karajica In Sudabeh Mortezai’s provocative fifth feature, “Europa,” the Vienna-based director follows ambitious executive Beate from Europa, a mysterious corporation looking to expand into the Balkans by seemingly promoting philanthropy and investment in underdeveloped areas.
What Europa actually needs is to buy land from the locals in a remote Albanian valley. The film plays in Competition at the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Mortezai can’t exactly pinpoint the genesis of “Europa” to a specific idea or moment, but says it’s rather an amalgamation of observations she’s made over time and her own interest in the general state of our world. “I’ve been observing or experiencing a disconnect between the ideals we have.
And Europe is not just a continent. It’s a promise of human rights, of specific values,” she says. “And when you see a disconnect between that and many aspects like income, social inequality, economic inequality, it makes you wonder.” Beyond this disconnect, Mortezai is also critical of the many forms of exploitation – including gender equality, female empowerment and diversity – which, according to her, our “whole lifestyle” and our “modern privileged society” are based on. “Of course, the empowerment of women and providing youth with a bright future are very important issues, but it’s interesting to see how they are used in the corporate world nowadays; how having diversity and feminism has almost become ‘wokewashing.’ That’s what I’m critical of,” she explains.
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