Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling to vie for Cannes’ top prize
by Olivia Popp
- Sold by mk2, the German director’s sophomore feature will be the first German-language film to compete for the Palme d'Or in eight years
For the upcoming Cannes Film Festival (13-24 May), Germany boasts a buzzy Palme d'Or contender in the guise of Sound of Falling, which previously held the working title The Doctor Says I’ll Be Alright, But I’m Feelin’ Blue. As the sophomore feature by Berlin-born director Mascha Schilinski, the project will be the first German-language film in eight years to compete in the Cannes Competition for its top prize. The movie was boarded early on by mk2 for its world sales.
The synopsis reads as follows: over the course of a century, as four girls from different time periods experience their youth on a German farm, their lives become intertwined until time seems to dissolve. The film takes place in the Altmark, a historic region in Saxony-Anhalt, west of Berlin and south of Hamburg. The story is set across the 1910s, 1940s, 1980s and 2020s, following one young woman across each of the eras but within one connected family. Sound of Falling stars Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Luise Heyer, Lea Drinda, Susanne Wuest, Luzia Oppermann, Claudia Geisler-Bading, Florian Geißelmann, Konstantin Lindhorst, Filip Schnack, Greta Krämer and others.
Schilinski emerged onto the scene in 2017 with her debut feature, Dark Blue Girl [+see also:
trailer
film profile], in the now-defunct Perspektive Deutsches Kino section of the Berlinale. The film is co-written by Schilinski and Louise Peter, a screenwriting team who already nabbed the Thomas Strittmatter Prize, awarded annually to a high-quality screenplay with a tie to the region of Baden-Württemberg. The production spent 34 days shooting in two small villages within Saxon-Anhalt, with filming having concluded in early September 2023. The cinematographer has been revealed as Fabian Gamper.
The feature was produced by Studio Zentral with ZDF/Das Kleine Fernsehspiel, and with support from Die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (BKM), Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and Deutscher Filmförderfonds (DFFF). Its German theatrical release is set for September 2025, courtesy of distributor Neue Visionen.
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