The filmmaker thus sets out, through No Mercy, to discover exactly that: does it mean on-screen physical violence or perhaps something psychologically horrifying? Through a series of eye-opening – and often themselves shocking – talking-head interviews, Willinger brings up the question of violence in cinema by women. Virginie Despentes, co-director of the cult classic Baise-moi, says she believes that women, of course, can make the most brutal films. When women fight back, anything may be seen as violence – even when it’s simply a revolutionary struggle for emancipation, turning into something joyful. No Mercy is a German-Austrian production staged by Tondowski Films and FlairFilm, in co-production with ORF Film/Fernseh-Abkommen and ZDF, in collaboration with ARTE.