“The Privileged Life Can Also Come at a Price”: Eva Mulvad on her TIFF-Premiering Love Child

Having committed adultery and conceived a child out of wedlock, a couple is forced to choose between keeping secrets and family ties — or being true to love and residing in exile. Though that could be the plot of an old-fashioned romance novel (or modern-day soap opera), it’s actually the all-too-real situation the protagonists at the heart of Eva Mulvad’s documentary Love Child are forced to reckon with.

Over the course of six years Mulvad (the Danish documentarian behind lighter dramatic fare such as the Grey Gardens-in-Portugal standout The Good Life, and more recently, A Cherry Tale and A Modern Man) follows Iranian lovebirds Leila and Sahand, and their young son, as they flee their country, await asylum in Turkey, and attempt to start some semblance of a “normal” life. All the while knowing that the consequences of their initial momentous decision to leave could be never touching beloved family members again. Or a deportation to a homeland in which extramarital relationships are punishable by death.

Filmmaker was fortunate to catch up with Mulvad to discuss this latest work soon after the film world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.