Introduction to a Dream Come True
"I am very nervous," says the 41-year-old director and screenwriter Mascha Schilinski. "I’m incredibly happy, but the nervousness predominates." She had hoped that her film would be shown at a big festival, and the feeling that this deserved this distinction. "But I didn’t really expect it. It’s a dream of a filmmaker!"
Representation at the Cannes International Film Festival
Now Schilinski fulfills this dream at the 78th Cannes International Film Festival. German directors in Cannes are not very common, making this a significant achievement. This year, the country will also be represented by other notable directors, but Schilinski is the only German director with a film in the main competition since "Toni Erdmann" at the 2016 festival.
Competition for the Golden Palm Award
Schilinski’s film competes for the coveted Golden Palm Award with works by renowned directors such as Wes Anderson, Kelly Reichardt, and Richard Linklater. This prestigious award is a testament to the film’s quality and the director’s skill.
Portrait of Four Generations
"Sound of Falling" is set on a farm in a small village in northeastern Germany. It follows the life of four generations of women who live on the farm and interweave their stories by jumping back and forth under different timelines until the boundaries between them are blurred. What begins as portraits of four generations becomes a comprehensive presentation of a century.
The Inspiration Behind the Film
"When we went through the rooms of the farmhouse, we could feel the centuries," says Schilinski. She explains that she often wondered as a little girl growing up in an apartment building in Berlin: "What happened between these walls in the past? Who sat directly at the point I am now sitting? What fates have played here? What did the people who lived here have experienced and felt?" So her film is an attempt to imagine answers to these questions.
The Female Look in the Film
As with Schilinski’s debut film, this latest work focuses on a female perspective. Schilinski says that the female look was very important for her and her co-author because it is so rare in films. "Sound of Falling" receives events from the perspective of women. "The film revolves very much around the eyes that women were exposed to over the course of a century, as it feels today and how it continued and burned into the body," explains the director.
Career Path and Future
Schilinski’s career path seems to be almost predestined: her mother is a filmmaker, and she began to act for film and television while still at school. After studying script at the Hamburg film school, she settled in Berlin and worked as a freelance screenwriter for film and television. Her career will probably get a further increase when her latest film is shown in Cannes. Schilinski says she couldn’t quite believe when she got the invitation for the first time: "I checked whether the ‘official selection’ was a kind of sidebar or actually the main competition" and added, "But shortly before Christmas the notification came: ‘Congratulations, you are in the main competition in Cannes!’"
