INTERVIEW - Petra Volpe is perhaps Switzerland's most successful filmmaker. Yet her parents once advised her: "Do something with food. People are always hungry."

Petra Volpe once described herself as "a small, fat Italian child with glasses." Born into a world of "low expectations," where culture played no role, a recent article stated: "Petra Volpe is the most successful woman, probably even the most successful person, in the Swiss film industry." Her current film, "Heroine," was seen by 650,000 people in German-speaking countries, and now Switzerland has put it in the running for an Oscar.

Ms. Volpe, how did the working-class child end up in the film industry?

My parents are probably still surprised by that to this day! Growing up with art doesn't mean you'll end up making art—and vice versa. I watched a lot of TV in the evenings with my brother and my parents. And everyone in the family loves to tell stories. Everyday stories: My mother knew a lot about village life, my uncle went to sea and told stories about his adventures, and my grandmother was a very good storyteller anyway. That was my foundation for becoming a filmmaker.

Your mother is a secretary from Aargau, your father a worker from Italy. How did that influence you?

Depending on social class and gender, there are certain expectations that a family or society places on you—or doesn't. As a girl and an Italian child, I received no support or encouragement. It was enough if I did well in school. Studying was something for the children of doctors and lawyers, not for those of working-class parents. Very little was expected of me.

But that can also be liberating.

True. I had to develop my own standards early on.

What were the values ​​you grew up with?

Having a "decent" job was important in my family. It counted for something. Things like making music or painting were hobbies. The idea that one could earn a secure living as an artist was foreign to us. The idea that I could make films simply didn't exist, not even as a dream.

What profession would your family have wanted for you?

My parents said, "Do something with food. People are always hungry." My grandparents were bakers, my grandmother was a farmer. I went to business school instead of an apprenticeship because that would have given me the opportunity to still get my high school diploma. But in my family, they said, "Petra is still going to school because she doesn't want to work." When I went to art school, my parents were mostly worried that I wouldn't earn anything.

Has this perspective on your family changed?

Today, my parents are incredibly proud and always worry that I work too much. At the same time, my father still sometimes asks me, "How are you doing financially? Are you getting by?" Every now and then, he wants to slip me a hundred-franc note. That touches me deeply. My father grew up in precarious circumstances. Sometimes it wasn't enough to buy food. He knows what poverty is—and he doesn't want that for me.

Did you also grow up in poverty?

Not poverty, but my parents always had to watch their money. My father's dream was to have his own pizzeria, but he never had enough. Nevertheless, he cooked for others at every opportunity. With the Italian Club, for example, he made pasta for the whole village. Gathering people together and entertaining them makes him happy. My mother, the baker's daughter, does the same. And I think I get that from them, too: I want to bring people together and nourish them. Not with pasta, but with stories and food for thought. And I'm convinced that people will always be hungry afterward, too.

However, cinemas and other cultural institutions where people come together are not doing so well at the moment.

But there are also always films that fill the cinemas. So, people's need for these places is still there. The screen is the campfire around which we gather—I believe, just like food, art and storytelling are a fundamental human need. That's where connection and empathy arise.

How do you feel when you are sitting in the cinema?

Sometimes I get annoyed at a neighbor in the cinema who's loudly munching popcorn. Then we both cry our hearts out at the same moment, and a sense of closeness develops. This shared physical experience of pain and joy with strangers doesn't exist when you're alone staring at your phone.

With "Heroine," Switzerland is already sending your second film into the Oscar race. "The Divine Order" and "Heroine" were also huge box office successes throughout Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Both films have also been, and are currently, shown in theaters in the US. What makes a Swiss story suitable for Hollywood?

I always look for the universal thread in the story. It's a very conscious effort. I don't want to worry about localization. Instead, I ask myself: What about the story of a Swiss housewife from a small Swiss village is big enough to touch so many people? I want to make films that work across borders. That doesn't always work, but together with my producers, we at least try.

Most Swiss filmmakers fail to gain recognition beyond their borders. You live between Berlin and New York: Do you need distance to recognize universal elements in Swiss stories?

Distance is always good in artistic work. But I don't have to be in Switzerland to be in Switzerland. Quite the opposite: It was only when I was abroad that I understood how Swiss I am. How deeply Swiss culture is embedded in me. Because suddenly I'm surrounded by people who don't have that. When I come home, everything seems sharper and clearer. I need this change of focus for my work. But the older my parents get, the more I think about coming back. At least to Europe. I don't want to be in New York if something is going on with them.

So you look at Switzerland from afar and then work on those topics that are big enough to be seen from afar?

My issues are often treated as marginal by politicians in Switzerland. Perhaps distance helps to distance oneself from the flimsy arguments for this marginalization and to recognize that it's worth questioning certain narratives.

For example?

Care costs too much and doesn't generate any financial gain, so it's not a priority. Yet we'll all depend on these people next to our hospital beds at some point. Or: We are the oldest democracy in the world—but we only really became a democracy when women were granted the right to vote in 1971. And: Prostitution has always existed, so there's no need to negotiate it. I'm interested in taking a closer look at statements like these.

What fascinates you about it?

There's a clear intention behind all of this: These entrenched statements serve to preserve the status quo. They stabilize a deeply patriarchal-capitalist value system and ensure that existing power relations remain unchallenged.

You have a very feminist perspective on the system and the world. Your stories also primarily focus on inequality, whether in politics, society, or currently in medicine.

I was born in 1970. Even as a girl and young woman, I felt the unequal treatment of women and men was unfair. My parents were very politically interested; my father was interested in workers' rights, my mother in women's rights. It was a topic floating around in our family, and I embraced it.

“The Divine Order” came to cinemas as #MeToo was sweeping the world – what has changed since then?

Back then, I thought everything was going so well. Now we're experiencing a severe backlash because the existing system feels under attack from these changes. Politicians in the US in particular are actively trying to reverse everything; they're using every ounce of force to regain power over women. Today, politicians there are saying in all seriousness that women should return to the kitchen. But this backlash won't last forever. History shows us that we're always taking steps forward and backward. But with every year that I get older, the horizon comes closer. And I ask myself: How much more back and forth will I experience? Where will we be when my end comes?

Are you concerned about aging?

Yes, I'm dealing with it. Because, purely numerically, it's clear to me: I'm 55 years old, and a large part of my life is already behind me, not ahead of me. Certain issues gain even greater urgency as a result. And especially when it comes to civil liberties, I believe taking things for granted is the greatest provocation of all.

What do you mean?

My husband is American. We live in New York. After just the first three months of Trump's rule, many people around me said, "I can't read anything about him anymore; it's not good for my mental health." I then said, "If you ever live in fascism, it's not good for your mental health either."

Does the near future look bleak for you?

We live in a very anti-intellectual age. Critical thinking is becoming impoverished. I'm not against artificial intelligence, but it's making us lazy. Thinking is exhausting, and you have to consciously choose to do it. We have the world's knowledge in our hands, and at the same time, we're becoming intellectually and emotionally impoverished because we're constantly distracted. We lack the focus for empathy and criticism, and that paralyzes us. Gaza, Ukraine, what's happening in the US, environmental pollution—it's stressful and exhausting to deal with it all. But the least we should do is not close ourselves off to it. If we check out internally and no longer allow empathy, the future looks truly bleak. Just staring blankly at our devices—what kind of existence is that?

After many successful films from Switzerland, you've now filmed abroad for the first time. Has your homeland become too small?

The new film is set in an American men's prison, and it's about dementia. My main characters are two African-American men whose world couldn't be further from mine. But there's one element that connects us deeply: the question of human dignity. What gives our lives meaning? What makes us human? These questions concern us all. Regardless of whether we're man or woman, Swiss or American.