Sound of Falling

Four young girls in four different eras. Alma, Erika, Angelika, and Lenka spend their teenage years on the same farm in northern Germany. As the house changes over the course of the century, echoes of the past reverberate within its walls. Despite the years that separate them, their lives seem to respond to one another.

Over the course of a century, German filmmaker Mascha Schilinski follows the ramifications of the shared pain among four young women. The farmhouse where they each in turn live serves as the starting point for a sensuous haunted-house story in which the storylines flow into one another in a beautifully balanced way, like a watercolour painting. In a quasi-archaeological endeavour to dissect the emotional layers of the family heritage, it is not chronology but the embodiment of intergenerational trauma that serves as the guiding thread.

Internationally acclaimed, SOUND OF FALLING is not only about looking, but also about being (unwillingly) looked at—and rendered invisible. Schilinski and cinematographer Fabian Gamper also drew inspiration from the work of American photographer Francesca Woodman, known for her hazy, dreamlike (self-)portraits of ethereal quality. This aspect also recalls Sofia Coppola’s THE VIRGIN SUICIDES (1999) and THE BEGUILED (2017).

The New Yorker wrote: “One of Cannes’ best and most memorable films.” Indeed, SOUND OF FALLING was last year’s big surprise at the Cannes Film Festival, which earned the enigmatic film the Jury Prize and a nomination as Germany’s Oscar entry.