Interview | Johanna Moder, director of Mother’s Baby: “My film tries to look at things people don’t like to face.”

Disclosure | MDH Entretenimento

• By Alisson Santos 

Austrian director Johanna Moder has spent the last decade building a filmography marked by psychological unrest and characters struggling with their place in time. After gaining attention with High Performance (2014), which won the Audience Award at the Max Ophüls Festival, and solidifying her name on the European circuit with Once Were Rebels (2019), the filmmaker now returns with an even more ambitious project; Mother’s Baby, a psychological thriller that dives into the most ambiguous zones of motherhood and is now available in theaters with distribution by Autoral Filmes.

A co-production between Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, the film follows Julia, a respected 40-year-old orchestra conductor who, after years trying to conceive, finally manages to have a child through fertility treatment at a clinic. What should be the realization of a dream, however, turns into a psychological nightmare when the birth becomes traumatic and the baby is immediately taken away for “treatment.” When she finally reunites with the newborn, Julia begins to feel a disturbing emotional distance — and starts questioning whether that child is really hers.

The film transforms the fear and anxiety surrounding motherhood into a cold, unsettling thriller, exploring themes such as postpartum depression, the social expectations surrounding motherhood, and the fragility of human perception in extreme situations.

In a conversation with MDH Entretenimento, Moder reflected on the film’s narrative ambiguities, the psychological construction of its protagonist, and the political and social questions embedded in the story.

1. Mother’s Baby constantly navigates the space between perception and reality. At what stage in development did you decide that ambiguity would become the film’s structural backbone? Was there ever a more explicit version of the story?

Johanna Moder:

I always had a very clear vision of this story in mind. As the script developed, I realized that it could also be read in a completely different way. So during the development process we started supporting that alternative interpretation and intensified it even further in the editing. We felt it was more interesting if the story could be interpreted in many different ways. I suspect this happens because people can only see what they already know.

2. The film deals with postpartum depression and the social idealization of motherhood, yet it avoids a didactic or clinical approach. How did you balance psychological realism with genre tension?

Johanna Moder:

Because I wanted to tell this story exactly this way from the very beginning, I didn’t really think about genre or classification. I simply followed my own internal structure, telling a story about a feeling that, until then, I had not been able to name. For me, it was a necessary consequence of my own experiences, allowing me to better classify my emotional history without telling an autobiographical story. Above all, I wanted to transform that feeling, that state, into a film.

3. Julia is an orchestra conductor — someone professionally trained to control rhythm, harmony, and time. To what extent was her profession conceived as a metaphor for the loss of control she experiences after giving birth?

Johanna Moder:

Good question. When I thought about her profession, my main concern was that she would have a career she was passionate about and fulfilled by. This means she has great control over a musical ensemble, but she loses control at home. This is also reinforced by the music itself, which she gradually loses connection with throughout the story and must rediscover for herself in a new and different way — just like her life after giving birth.

4. The visual atmosphere feels deliberately cold and clinical. Can you talk about your collaboration with the cinematographer in building that emotional distance? Did you want the audience to feel isolated along with Julia?

Johanna Moder:

Robert Oberrainer, my cinematographer, and my production designer Hannes Salat created this world together with me. We were inspired by modern baby stores, which sell a cozy and idyllic atmosphere for a phase of life that is usually the opposite of that: chaos, baby vomit on the couch, little sleep, and very little rest. At the same time, we were also inspired by aquariums. Julia and Georg practically live inside an aquarium; there is no place to retreat. They are at the mercy of themselves everywhere.

5. I see many echoes of "Rosemary’s Baby", but your film seems less interested in external horror and more in an internal implosion. Do you see your work as a contemporary response to that type of narrative, or as something moving in another direction?

Johanna Moder:

"Rosemary’s Baby" was an extremely successful and subtle model of horror storytelling. Although I never explicitly defined my film as a horror movie, but rather as a horror story surrounding childbirth.

6. Marie Leuenberger delivers an extremely restrained and internal performance. What was your directing approach with her? Did you focus more on silence and physical nuance than on dialogue?

Johanna Moder:

I think Marie Leuenberger embodies both strength and fragility as an actress. I find that contrast very fascinating. That’s how I imagined Julia. We didn’t talk much about the content of the scenes; Marie already knew me and knew my personal story. So she explored the scenes in her own way and made the character her own. I always find it very enriching when actors find their own approach to a character. That new impulse often goes beyond my own imagination.

7. The husband and the doctor are never openly villains, but they never seem entirely trustworthy either. Were you intentionally exploring how women’s experiences — especially in medical contexts — are often subtly invalidated rather than openly dismissed?

Johanna Moder:

Yes, that’s an important theme. And I believe it affects all of us at some point, because we will all be at the mercy of that medical environment at some point in our lives. My film is about how pregnant mothers are treated and also about the many comments and phrases — often unintentionally offensive — that you never forget, but that make you question yourself as a person, as a mother, or as a woman. Clearly, more sensitivity or education is needed in this field, although a lot has been done in recent years, at least in Austria.

8. There is a quiet but persistent critique of institutions — medical systems, family structures, and even cultural narratives about motherhood. Do you consider Mother’s Baby a political film in any sense?

Johanna Moder:

The themes that interest me and that I want to explore in my films are always political in the broadest sense. I try to look at things people don’t like to face — either because they are painful or because, until now, there has been no language to describe them.

9. As a filmmaker exploring maternal anxiety and paranoia, did you feel any specific expectations from producers, festivals, or critics about how the story “should” be told?

Johanna Moder:

Yes, surprisingly — but only after the film was finished. It was mainly male critics who questioned the ending, wishing for a different conclusion to the story. Or interpreting the ending in a different way than I intended. But since I wanted to tell the story exactly this way and no other, I feel justified and would tell it the same way again.