Mond

Sarah is a martial arts fighter whose career is ruined after a lost competition. She starts teaching at the local gym, but is approached by a Jordanian businessman who offers her a temporary job training his young sisters. She blindly accepts this offer and ends up in the patriarchal atmosphere of the mega-rich in Amman. There, she is driven every day from her luxurious hotel to a large, remote palace where she has to train three sisters. The young women never leave the house, except for trips with their bodyguards.

They have no wifi, are homeschooled and have little to occupy their time except putting on make-up or watching soap operas. By the time Sarah starts asking questions, inexplicable little events she’s been brooding over develop into something more tragic and she’s swept up in their quest for freedom. Mond is a political thriller disguised as a personal story about curtailed women’s rights. Modern technology can help young women, it turns out, but it can also hinder them. Maker Ayub, born in Iraq but living in Austria, made her film debut in 2022 with Sonne , also produced by filmmaker Ulrich Seidl.