Sound of Falling

Sound of Falling
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German	In die Sonne schauen
Directed by	Mascha Schilinski
Written by	Mascha Schilinski Louise Peter
Produced by	Lucas Schmidt Lasse Scharpen Maren Schmitt
Starring	Hanna Heckt Lena Urzendowsky Laeni Geiseler Susanne Wuest Luise Heyer Lea Drinda
Cinematography	Fabian Gamper
Edited by	Evelyn Rack
Music by	Michael Fiedler Eike Hosenfeld
Production companies	Studio Zentral ZDF
Distributed by	Neue Visionen
Release dates	14 May 2025 (2025-05-14) (Cannes) 28 August 2025 (2025-08-28) (Germany)
Running time	149 minutes
Country	Germany
Language	German

Sound of Falling (German: In die Sonne schauen, lit. 'Looking into the sun') is a 2025 German drama film co-written and directed by Mascha Schilinski. Starring Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Laeni Geiseler, Susanne Wuest, Luise Heyer, and Lea Drinda, it follows four generations of girls connected by a farm in the Altmark, Germany.

The film premiered in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 2025, where it won the Jury Prize. It was theatrically released in Germany by Neue Visionen on 28 August 2025. It was selected as the German entry for Best International Feature Film at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards, making the December shortlist.

Premise

The film follows four girls—Alma, Erika, Angelika, and Lenka—from different historical periods (shortly before World War I, at the end of World War II, in East Germany during the 1980s, and during the early 21st century, respectively) whose lives are subtly interconnected. Each spends their youth on the same four-sided farmstead in the Altmark region. Some of the children are subjected to sexual assault, abuse, and incest. As they move through their respective presents, traces of the past gradually emerge.

Cast

• Hanna Heckt as Alma
• Lena Urzendowsky as Angelika
• Laeni Geiseler as Lenka
• Susanne Wuest as Emma
• Luise Heyer as Christa
• Lea Drinda as Erika
• Florian Geißelmann as Rainer
• Greta Krämer as Lia
• Claudia Geisler-Bading as Irm
• Zoë Baier as Nelly
• Konstantin Lindhorst as Uwe
• Luzia Oppermann as Trudi
• Gode Benedix as Max
• Filip Schnack as Fritz
  • Martin Rother as older Fritz
• Andreas Anke as Albat
• Liane Düsterhöft as Frieda
• Lucas Prisor as Hannes
• Ninel Geiger as Kaya
• Helena Lüer as Gerti
• Anastasia Cherepakha as Hedda
• Bärbel Schwarz as Berta

Production

Development

Co-writers Mascha Schilinski and Louise Peter were inspired to write the film after spending a summer on a farm in the Altmark. After seeing a photo of three women from 1920, Schilinski and Peter began imagining what the women's lives were like.

As we went through the rooms of the farmhouse, we could sense the centuries. It brought up a question I've had since childhood. What happened between these walls in the past? Who has sat right in the spot where I'm now sitting? What fates played out here? What did the people who lived here experience and feel?

— Mascha Schilinski

The screenplay was developed over three years under the working title The Doctor Says I'll Be Alright, But I'm Feelin' Blue. In 2023, it won the Thomas Strittmatter Screenplay Award by the MFG Filmförderung.

Casting

Over 1,400 girls auditioned for the four main characters. Schilinski stated that the production team searched for girls whose faces could represent the time period of each character. The casting process took place over the course of a year, and the cast comprises both experienced actors and newcomers.

Filming

Principal photography began in August 2023. The film was shot over 34 days in Neulingen and Vehlgast, both in Saxony-Anhalt. For a visual reference, the production team took inspiration from the works of American photographer Francesca Woodman. Filming was completed on 2 September 2023.

Release

Cast and crew of the film at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

The film was screened in the Work in Progress section of Les Arcs Film Festival in December 2023. mk2 Films acquired the international sales rights to the film in April 2025. A promotional clip and full trailer were released on 13 May 2025. The film had its world premiere in competition at the 78th Cannes Film Festival on 14 May 2025. It was the first film by a German female filmmaker to compete in the main competition of the festival since Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann in 2016.

Following its Cannes premiere, Mubi acquired the distribution rights for the film in North America, the UK, Ireland, Turkey, and India. The film received a theatrical release in Germany on 28 August 2025. The film also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, the BFI London Film Festival, and the Valladolid International Film Festival.

It competed in the Stockholm Competition of the 2025 Stockholm International Film Festival on November 6, 2025.

Reception

Mascha Schilinski holding the Jury Prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 95% of 40 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.0/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 91 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Guy Lodge of Variety called the film "exquisite" and "astonishingly poised and ambitious". He praised writer-director Mascha Schilinski and co-writer Louise Peter for constructing an intricate story of womanhood through the lens of the four main characters, noting that "no finer point of craft, performance or poetic nuance [was] rushed or neglected". He also commended Schilinski's direction and Fabian Gamper's cinematography. Damon Wise of Deadline praised the film, calling it "superb" and "a masterclass in ethereal, unnerving brilliance". He concluded that, "Cinema is too small a word for what this sprawling yet intimate epic achieves in its ethereal, unnerving brilliance; forget Cannes, forget the Competition, forget the whole year, even—Sound of Falling is an all-timer." David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a grade of A− and wrote, "So tenderly in touch with the shared but unspoken traumas that are visited upon her cast of young women, Schilinski mines tremendous sorrow from the secret poetics of girlhood; she weaponizes cinema's ability to access the deepest interiors of human feeling, and swirls her characters together in a way that tortures them for their subjectivity."

Jordan Mintzer of The Hollywood Reporter commended the film's unique method of storytelling and wrote, "Sound of Falling is arthouse filmmaking with a capital A that will best appeal to patient audiences. They will be rewarded by a work that reminds us how the cinema can still reinvent itself, as long as there are directors like [Mascha] Schilinski audacious enough to try." Alison Willmore of Vulture called the film an "astonishing work, twining together the lives of four generations of families with an intricacy and intimacy that feels like an act of psychic transmission", while Wendy Ide of Screen Daily called it a "work of thrilling ambition" that "announces Schilinski as a talent of considerable note". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film four out of five stars, noting that it was "dense with fear and sadness".

Emma Kiely of Collider, however, gave the film a score of 5 out of 10 and called it "a hollow, navel-gazing glamorization of female suicide, incest, sexual assault" as well as "a pretentious romanticization of the hardship women go through rather than an in-depth analysis of how systems and families can sit back and allow such trauma and suffering to claim women's lives." She criticized the underdevelopment of the characters and wrote that "the film is excessively grim to the point that it feels exploitative." Despite this, she commended Schilinski's direction, Gamper's cinematography, and the film's sound design.

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s)	Result	Ref.
Athens International Film Festival	19 April 2025	Golden Athena	Sound of Falling	Won
British Independent Film Awards	30 November 2025	Best International Independent Film	Mascha Schilinski, Louise Peter, Maren Schmitt, Lucas Schmidt	Nominated
Camerimage	22 November 2025	Golden Frog	Fabian Gamper	Nominated
		Silver Frog		Won
Cannes Film Festival	24 May 2025	Palme d'Or	Mascha Schilinski	Nominated
		Jury Prize		Won
Chicago International Film Festival	24 October 2025	Gold Hugo	Sound of Falling	Nominated
		Best Director	Mascha Schilinski	Won
		Best Sound	Sound of Falling	Won
European Film Awards	17 January 2026	Best Film		Pending
		Best Director	Mascha Schilinski	Pending
		Best Screenwriter	Mascha Schilinski and Louise Peter	Pending
		Best Casting Director	Karimah El-Giamal, Germany Jacqueline Rietz	Pending
		European Cinematographer	Fabian Gamper	Pending
		European Costume Designer	Sabrina Krämer	Pending
		European Make-up & Hair Artist	Irina Schwarz, Anne-Marie Walther	Pending
		European Composer (Original Score)	Michael Fiedler, Eike Hosenfeld	Pending
Gotham Independent Film Awards	1 December 2025	Best Original Screenplay	Mascha Schilinski and Louise Peter	Nominated
		Best International Feature	Lucas Schmidt and Maren Schmitt	Nominated
Jerusalem Film Festival	26 July 2025	Best Director – Special Mention	Mascha Schilinski	Won
Melbourne International Film Festival	23 August 2025	Bright Horizons Competition		Nominated
Stockholm International Film Festival	14 November 2025	Golden Horse	Sound of Falling	Nominated
		Best Director	Mascha Schillinski	Won
Valladolid International Film Festival	1 November 2025	Golden Spike	Sound of Falling	Nominated

See also

• List of submissions to the 98th Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film
• List of German submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

External links

• Sound of Falling at IMDb