Anna Muylaert Found International Success With ‘The Second Mother.’ The Abuse That Came Afterwards Shaped ‘The Best Mother in the World’

variety.com:

Rafa Sales Ross Guest Contributor The first time Anna Muylaert had a film play at the Berlin Film Festival, it changed her life, and not entirely for the best. “The Second Mother,” which won the Panorama Audience Award and went on to become Brazil’s representative at the Academy Awards as well as the most popular film in the country that year, changed Muylaert’s career and catapulted her to international attention. “The Best Mother in the World” was inspired by what came next: an unexpected wave of abuse that saw the director look at the ways women navigate the world.

Speaking with Variety ahead of the world premiere of her latest, Muylaert says that after the success of “The Second Mother,” she gained respect from the press and the public but began to “suffer a lot of violence from those closest” to her.

The director compares what happened to her to Sandra Hüller’s character in Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” in that her relationships began to crumble once she experienced success. “I was abused verbally, psychologically, even sexually.

It was crazy,” continues Muylaert. “When my name started to grow, people began to disrespect me, something that had never happened before.