World
Filmmaker Couple Asks Themselves ‘Why the F*** Am I So Sad?’ to Reclaim the Narrative of Childlessness
After 14 years together, editor Nela Märki and cinematographer-producer Martin Rattini locate a kernel of sadness in a shared life they describe as happy: they have not been able to have children. Grief and love inform the couple’s first feature—they share directors’ credits—with the title “Why the F*** Am I So Sad?,” which documents their changing relationship to childlessness.
Their documentary project was pitched earlier this week at Thessaloniki’s Pitching Forum and has since received the Mediterranean Film Institute Doc Award, which consists of free participation in the 2024 edition of the MFI Doc Lab, a script development program dedicated to documentaries. Films that Märki has edited have screened at Locarno, CPH:DOX and IDFA, but “Why the F*** Am I So Sad?” will be a debut feature for both of them as directors. Rattini, who is also a cinematographer, produces with Italy’s Helios Sustainable Films.
Speaking with Variety, Märki says she’d noticed nuanced depictions of childless couples were lacking in cinema, while the existent ones were mostly negatively tinted, particularly the women. Then, she understood the best way forward was to make a film about her and Martin’s story, and to do it together. “We thought, ‘We’re filmmakers, let’s document this!’,” says Rattini regarding the way the couple dealt with an ongoing cycle of IVF treatments, procedures invasive to the female body often billed as “an easy fix and a quick thing.” After a decade of trying to build a nuclear family, the two embarked on a journey to make “a film about what comes after you realize nothing works,” Märki says, suggesting that maybe there is something else to cherish in that situation, “living a happy life without children.”
Märki was open about her ambivalence on the topic of motherhood, being both “open” and “pressured” by societal expectations.” In the titular question, they consider the pitfalls of identity as defined against a rigid idea of the “normal” nuclear family: “If we weren’t able to do this ‘normal’ thing, are we not part of the ‘normal’ people?,” she asks. In the process of researching childlessness, she noticed how strong the recurring narrative is, and how one-sided: if you don’t have kids, you lack something fundamental.
After the age of 40, as Westerners, they noticed that exclusion and isolation happen almost naturally when you’re the only childless couple in a friend group. This aspect of the social rules made them consider “Why the F*** Am I So Sad?” also a project where they can question belonging. “Almost a quarter of the population of Western Europe and Japan never have children, so what about them? Nobody talks about them, at least not in a very positive light,” Märki says.
Developing this documentary project has allowed the couple to turn the camera on themselves and each other for the first time in such an intense way. “Why the F*** Am I So Sad?” mixes an archive of holiday memories, filmed on Super 8 with an underwater camera, with digital, 4K or smartphone footage of their daily life now, as it unfolds. “These are our so-called ‘happy moments’,” Rattini says, poking fun at the idea of a perfect—and perfectly documented—couple, “because when you film each other on analogue film for 10 years, on every vacation, you end up with a representation of the perfect couple.”
Additionally, Märki and Rattini will digitalize and incorporate archive materials from their own families to complement the structure. An important part they have also mapped out is a part where they reflect on the dreams and aspirations they’ve had, and “also things we cannot tell each other, like our fears,” Märki says. The two have slightly different attitudes toward childlessness depending on their individual backgrounds, so to tell their different stories, she says, they plan to involve therapists as facilitator figures. Contrasting with the imagery of a “perfect couple” is raw honesty in their shared search for ways to “free yourself from internalized social narratives and stereotypes,” she says.
The Thessaloniki Documentary Festival runs March 7 – 17.
President Trump said Iran had agreed to the “highest level” inspections, hours after an Iranian official said there were “no detailed discussions on the nuclear issue,” as the two sides continued to present different narratives of their latest talks.
World
Turkey detains over 200 suspects, including alleged ISIS militants, in sweeping raid ahead of NATO summit
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Turkish authorities reportedly detained more than 200 people, including suspected ISIS-linked militants, in a sweeping Tuesday raid in capital Ankara ahead of a July 7-8 NATO summit.
The raid came after Turkish authorities issued detention orders for 241 suspects, 209 of whom were taken into custody, The Associated Press reported, citing a statement from the office of Turkey’s chief prosecutor.
Among the 209 detained, 56 were allegedly ISIS militants, according to the AP. This comes after Turkish authorities said they detained 125 ISIS members in December.
The detention operations occurred just two weeks before a planned NATO summit in Ankara on July 7 that President Donald Trump is expected to attend.
TURKEY’S NATO ROLE UNDER SCRUTINY AMID NEW REPORT ON HAMAS, MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TIES
President Donald Trump greets Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, on Oct. 13, 2025, to support ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal. (Evan Vucci/AP Photo/Pool)
Other militants scooped up were 35 alleged members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front, which a Turkish statement described as “a far‑left group known for armed attacks and assassinations in Turkey,” according to the AP.
The ISIS-combating operations demonstrate the terrorist group’s ongoing activity in the region, showing the group is still functioning despite the U.S. campaign during Trump’s first term to eliminate the group’s caliphate and its control of large swaths of territory in the Middle East.
Iraqi government forces celebrate while holding an Islamis Sate (IS) group flag after they claimed they have gained complete control of the Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad, on January 26, 2015 near the town of Muqdadiyah. (YOUNIS AL-BAYATI/AFP via Getty Images)
In recent years, ISIS has spread into the African continent, prompting a strong response from the U.S. In May, Trump authorized a series of strikes in Nigeria to combat the group.
PENTAGON SLASHES NATO COMBAT COMMITMENTS AS TRUMP PUSHES EUROPE TO DEFEND ITSELF
A May 16 strike killed ISIS leader Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, who was the group’s second-in-command globally.
U.S. and Nigerian forces conducted kinetic strikes against ISIS fighters in northeastern Nigeria on May 17, 2026, AFRICOM said. (X/U.S. Africa Command)
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“Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, second in command of ISIS globally, thought he could hide in Africa, but little did he know we had sources who kept us informed on what he was doing,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social after the strike. “He will no longer terrorize the people of Africa, or help plan operations to target Americans.”
The group’s renewed activity also includes a call to supporters to make attacks on U.S. soil during the World Cup.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Euronews with AFP
Published on
Two whales were killed off the coast of Iceland overnight Sunday, two days after commercial hunting resumed, local media and animal rights activists reported Monday.
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The kill ends a two-year pause and marks the first catches since 2023.
Icelandic public broadcaster RUV reported that two fin whales were killed. The fin whale is the second largest animal on Earth after the blue whale.
Before the vessels set off on Friday, a protester had attached himself to one of the masts in the port of Reykjavik, but climbed down and was escorted away by police.
Iceland, Norway and Japan are the only three countries that still openly permit whaling, despite international condemnation from the public and animal welfare organisations.
Iceland cancelled its whale hunt over the past two years, partly because economic problems had cut demand and the industry was not deemed profitable enough.
“The first fin whale deaths in Iceland’s hunt this year are devastating,” said Joanna Swabe, European senior public affairs director for animal rights group Humane World for Animals.
“Iceland has killed more than 1,000 fin whales in the past two decades — not only the second largest animal on the planet but also a species classified as globally vulnerable to extinction,” Swabe said in a statement.
Iceland’s government has said it is planning to introduce a bill aimed at banning whaling this autumn.
The International Whaling Commission banned the commercial killing of whales in 1986 amid alarm at the declining stock of the marine mammals.
Iceland’s Marine and Freshwater Research Institute has recommended that no more than 150 fin whales are caught in the 2026 season.
That represents a 28-percent drop on the annual quota it recommended for the period 2018–2025, it said.
The institute has set an annual catch of 168 animals for the minke whale hunt this year, a 23-percent drop on 2018-2025.
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