10/07/2025 - Nina Knag’s debut feature explores the limits of desire and the asymmetry of power through a forbidden love affair

Norwegian director Nina Knag’s debut feature, Don’t Call Me Mama [+see also:
trailer
interview: Nina Knag
film profile], which has world-premiered in the Crystal Globe Competition at the Karlovy Vary IFF, explores the gradual erosion of personal and gender boundaries. Don't Call Me Mama examines the fragile interplay of power, desire and vulnerability in an intimate character study of a middle-aged woman whose sexual reawakening through a relationship with a young refugee gradually exposes the fault lines between personal impulses and institutional roles.

At the centre is forty-something Eva (Pia Tjelta), a literature teacher and the wife of the local mayor, Jostein (Kristoffer Joner), who forms an unexpected bond with 18-year-old Amir (Tarek Zayat), a refugee with a talent for poetry, who arrived not long ago. Initially framed as a story of emotional dislocation within the stagnant marriage of Eva and Jostein, the story pivots towards a discreetly drawn, morally ambivalent relationship that challenges traditional gender notions of desire and agency. The screenplay, co-written by Knag and Kathrine Valen Zeiner, exposes the complicated power dynamics at play, even though Don’t Call Me Mama is not Lolita in reverse.

Knag’s debut unfolds amidst a well-balanced shift in genre and tone, beginning as a restrained marital drama before transitioning into a story of forbidden romance between the woman and the refugee. What initially appears to be a story of emotional and sexual reawakening gradually takes on the contours of a psychological drama, as Eva’s projection of desire and unmet needs edges into obsession and self-deception. As the affair crumbles for different reasons, the film turns into a social chamber thriller, which nonetheless steers clear of melodrama, marked by Eva’s growing paranoia and escalating personal risk. The consequences of the affair, threatening her social standing and Amir’s asylum status, are rendered with increasing tension, underlining the political and personal stakes of a liaison conducted across generational, institutional and cultural lines.

Shot by Alvilde Horjen Naterstad, the cinematography adopts a naturalistic visual register, favouring tight framings and subdued lighting to mirror Eva’s increasingly claustrophobic emotional state. The camera remains closely aligned with her perspective, reinforcing the film’s intimacy while avoiding overt stylisation. Static compositions are employed to isolate characters within domestic and institutional spaces, reflecting the underlying tension between personal desire and social conventions.

Eva emerges as a morally ambivalent protagonist in a performance by Tjelta that balances restraint with emotional intensity, capturing the character’s gradual transformation into an anti-heroine. She is introduced as a figure worthy of our sympathy, an empty nester now adrift in a sexless marriage, whose initial search for connection turns into a clandestine affair maintained through deception. As Eva discovers Amir’s interest in a peer, the dynamic shifts from intimacy to control, with her actions increasingly motivated by jealousy. In its final act, the film foregrounds the asymmetry of power. The story exposes the cost of desire when it is denied legitimacy, positioning Eva not as a victim of circumstance, but rather as an agent of consequence navigating the space between private impulse and social expectation.

Don’t Call Me Mama was produced by Norway’s The Global Ensemble Drama and co-produced by Screen Story. REinvent Studios handles the international sales.