Sound of Falling (in-person & online)

Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Laeni Geiseler, Susanne Wuest

The astonishingly ambitious second feature from German writer-director Mascha Schilinski (Dark Blue Girl) braids together the lives of four generations of girls across the tumult and violence of the German 20th century. Screened in Competition at Cannes, where it won the Jury Prize, it’s Germany’s entry for Best International Feature at the 2026 Oscars. It’s a sombre, beautifully crafted study of Germany’s national trauma, the effects of violent patriarchy and the haunting emotional inheritance of successive conflicts for young women and girls.

On the river Elbe between Berlin and Hamburg, a family farm sits in a region that saw both world wars and defined Cold War divisions between East and West Germany. We visit with Alma (Hanna Heckt) in the early 20th century, Erika (Lea Drinda) in the 1940s, Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky) in the 1980s, and Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) in the present. As time moves both forwards and backwards, each faces her own particular fate.