Interview: Mascha Schilinski and Fabian Gamper on Crafting a Memory Piece and Exploring Transgenerational Trauma in ‘Sound of Falling’
When the slate of films premiering in competition at the Cannes Film Festival was revealed last Spring, one still stood out among the rest. In the image, which looked like it was found in a collection of antique photographs, a young girl with white-blonde hair gazed back at the camera. There was something so odd and striking about the image that the film instantly shot up to the top of my watchlist.
Sound of Falling, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes and is now Germany’s submission for International Feature at the Academy Awards, is an astounding coming-of-age diary that follows four girls from different generations as they grow up in the same farmhouse in Altmark, Germany. What’s remarkable about the film is that director Mascha Schilinski and her co-writer, Louise Peter, decide not to tell the story in chronological order, instead opting for a fragmentary exploration of time. In my review out of Cannes, I noted that “the fact that the film is so captivating despite its tricky narrative structure speaks to Schilinski’s command of the form and her audacious vision. There isn’t much dialogue or dramatic tension, with characters using voiceover narration to recall memories of their mothers and sisters, almost as if a living relative were next to you, going through relics and memories from their past.” This makes it all the more surprising that Sound of Falling is her first feature film since graduating from film school.
What makes the film stand out is the unique visual language, often recalling the dreamlike haze of Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides and Robert Altman’s 3 Women. The creation of these images is owed in large part to Schilinski’s collaboration with her cinematographer (and husband), Fabian Gamper. Gamper’s innovative approach to capturing the girls’ experiences recalls everything from painterly landscapes to 1970s black-and-white photographic self-portraiture, with time and nature as the two constants.
I was thrilled to have an in-depth conversation with Schilinski and Gamper about their creative process and the film’s inception. We also spoke at length about the film’s themes, giving young women an opportunity to “look back,” and what it means to explore transgenerational trauma. Watching Sound of Falling is an evocative, all-encompassing experience, and after speaking with Schilinski and Gamper, it’s clear why that initial still and the film remain etched in my mind.
Sophia Ciminello: I’d like to start with the genesis of the film and your writing process. Mascha, how were you and your co-writer inspired to create the story of these women? Where did that initial idea come from?
Mascha Schilinski: Yeah, Louise, my co-writer, and I were discussing these subtle questions about what is written into our bodies throughout time and what determines us long before we’re even born. We were interested in all of these phenomena about transgenerational trauma. We collected some stories and events and things that happened that we were reading or that happened in our own families or from friends, but all these things were more invisible. We were interested in these invisible things that have no name, and we were not sure how to turn them into a film. Then COVID hit, and we escaped the city and headed to the countryside, and we found this farm I had known since 2018. It’s an empty place where the owner had left it like it was fifty years ago, and it’s like time traveling. You go from one room to another, and the furniture is like it was. So, we found so many interesting things there, and it was so inspiring. A really odd question came back to me because, as a child, I grew up in an old home in Berlin, and I always asked myself who was sitting here in this room in this exact spot where I’m sitting now. Who felt what or thought what in that spot? There was this photograph in this house of three maids, and it was quite unusual because it was from the 1920s, and it seemed to be a snapshot because they were not posing. It was really in this moment and they were looking directly into the camera. And I don’t know, the way they looked touched us so deeply and we were asking ourselves, who are these women?
So, we started to research because we had this feeling that maybe this farm could be a vessel for all these questions that we had and wanted to explore. During research, we discovered so many hidden secrets, small stories, or hints and allusions about dark things that happened. It hit us in a way because we could feel that so many things are still there, even though there has been so much progress and so many things have changed already. We found it so interesting that so many people, when they’re thinking about transgenerational trauma, they are thinking about the war, but we wanted to create the film about these inner perspectives about all of these small, tiny things that you would never tell anybody, not even on the deathbed. Those things that are so full of shame. We wanted to create this stream of images from all of the people who lived in this same place, and we felt it should be more like a physical experience than a plot or something like that. We were developing the screenplay for three and a half years, so it took a while because we really needed to find the structure for what we were looking for. When we tried to create a plot or to do a character-driven thing, then all the things that were invisible from the quality of a novel disappear. So, it became pretty clear to us that it’s about memory itself and how memory and imagination flow into each other and how unreliable memory is. So, the structure of memory itself became the structure of the screenplay and this film.
SC: What really stood out to me was that it was not chronological, but fragmentary instead, and that these images were connected. You talking about memory makes me think of the line in the film that’s something like, “Mom knows things she shouldn’t remember because she wasn’t there when they happened.”
MS: Yeah, so for me, memory is not chronological in our minds. It jumps. So, we discussed the fact that the images that you see in the film are important, but the images that you don’t see are even more important because those are the things you have to suppress or let go of so that you can survive. The film has so many layers about memory, so we wanted to capture this feeling that you can’t reach a memory anymore. This was what Fabian and I discussed a lot. How can we approach this? How can we capture this feeling? Then I was interested in the idea that we are prisoners in our bodies, yet we look through our eyes. And so we are also directly radical in that way as we were in the bodies of all the characters, and we’re looking through their eyes. But when you have memories…so we are speaking now and we can see each other through our eyes, but later on when I’m thinking about this conversation, I can see myself maybe from an outer perspective. So, I have images in my mind that actually never happened, but that are building our identity as well. I wanted to let these images into the film so that they can see each other from an outside perspective.
SC: And Fabian, how did you think about memory when you were thinking about how you wanted the world of the film to look?
Fabian Gamper: So, the script was really built like that, so in very early stages, when we started to discuss how to shoot this film and what it would look like, it was our very clear goal to create this inner image. This was a really great starting point to start testing and figuring it out. And sometimes, for me, it was closing my eyes and trying to remember something from my childhood. For example, a person you loved and the person died, and you try to remember, but you can’t reach the face anymore. It takes a while to remember. You can remember certain situations, but the face is not in focus, which was kind of a key idea we had. We then started to create optical effects that mimicked that, like the image in the film where the grandmother is there, but the face is out of focus. It was a really joyful process to find those images and create something that feels organic and not like a video effect, and to find a flow for that that goes through the whole film. It was not like it was a clear, clean time, which is the present, and that there were flashbacks or memories within, which is often the case. We felt that the whole film should be treated as equal, as if the whole thing is memory processing. So, we had a lot of fun finding those different elements we could use, and then in shooting, figuring out what fits where and what would work in this moment.
SC: I wanted to ask you both about the perspective and when the camera belongs to a particular character. I think of the moment when Alma is smoothing out her dress, or she’s looking through the keyhole. How did you decide when the camera would occupy a character’s point of view?
FG: I think this is really more for you, Mascha, because it was all also written in the script, like when we really see it through a character’s perspective.
MS: Yeah, so this was all part of the script, and why it took so long, maybe (laughs).
FG: Yeah (laughs).
MS: It was so I could really feel at which moment you have to be with which character and which perspective, and when you need an outside shot. We wanted to create that stream of images from all of these people and what it should feel like. Because what happens when you have a trauma is that, maybe sometimes images surface, and they feel so strong, so powerful, and so real, but in the same moment, they have this dreamlike quality where you’re not sure anymore if this really happened or if it is just in your mind or where it’s coming from. So we wanted to capture this feeling, and it should feel like… in real life, we’re all separated from the past, and in this film, something happens that isn’t in their own life, but the characters can look through each other and through time in some moments. I wanted these characters to look through the fourth wall and look directly at the audience, like these characters are looking into the world, and the sound is answering. It’s like the universe is answering. So, we discussed these splintering fragments of trauma.
SC: You can feel that there’s a force that’s connecting these young women, too. Visually, you’re able to tell that you’re in different time periods, but it also feels so consistent. Did you have any cinematic or artistic reference points that you used to create the visual style?
FG: Well, there weren’t so many films that we referenced, but we had a very strong reference in the photographer, Francesca Woodman, which we both liked. Francesca committed suicide at a very young age, and she did a lot of self-portraits. Afterwards, people wrote about how these photographs kind of anticipate the suicide, which makes them very very strong. She also uses effects, and she often uses motion blur, so something is blurry, or her face is sometimes not visible, and they have this ghostly…
MS: (gestures to a photograph behind them on the wall) There she is!
SC: Oh, yes!
FG: There’s this ghostlike mystery in her photography, so we were very inspired by that. But the challenge was that we didn’t find a direct translation for that into the motion picture world. Because when I started to experiment with long shutter so we could create motion blur, it just felt like a music video or a video effect that you’ve already seen. I got to the consistency by testing around and referencing the inner pictures from every test we did. We had quite an extended phase of testing, which was great, and together we were always very clear and very critical because I think there’s a fine line. It could be an effect you’ve seen a thousand times and it can be just a bit boring because it’s not in focus. But if it has something like ghosts or something that reminds you of that, there’s a mystery in it. And so we created this library of effects we could use, and that actually worked for us, but it took us a long time in the prep phase.
SC: And we have a few really unique light sources in the film, too, like candlelight, flashlights, and oil lamps. Can you talk about your approach to lighting the film?
FG: Yeah, we wanted to be stylistically really in the same language and not to have a different lighting style or changes through the time periods. But they obviously used different practicals in different areas, which was a nice opportunity for me to experience a different atmosphere. A lot of that was obviously from production design and the costumes and different characters, which already made it clear enough for us that we were in a different time, but if a room is lit differently, it can look so different, and then the whole atmosphere changes. And for me, it was a nice way to keep the tonality natural, so it doesn’t feel too lit. Because we love the nights being dark, and we didn’t want to have this feeling of a clearly lit movie night where we can see too much detail, but also really feel the shadows of the night and go into the darkness. But also, when you’re sitting in a movie theater, it has become kind of a trend to be very dark, and it was daring to do dark scenes. We felt like if you were sitting in dark scenes for too long, it just becomes dull and flat, and you start to not have a good contrast, and it can get annoying. So, the use of practicals for me was really helpful in being able to light the places in a very dark way, and in the places that we needed. It was an interesting way of creating light and shadow.
MS: The idea was also to capture the feeling of when it gets dark, and your eyes need to adjust, and that this transition takes some time. After awhile this darkness isn’t so dark anymore. So we tried to find these transitions in the darkness as well.
FG: It works too if you have bright daylight and then go into a scene at night, and also for transitioning within a shot. And through the day, during the daytime scenes, we often work with silhouettes, so sometimes the people in the room feel like solid shadows. This was a bit tricky to figure out because we didn’t want to miss the performance in any way. But it works out in a moving shot where you start inside the building, and you have the benefit of seeing outside, and you have a very natural, unlit feeling for the scene. If the timing is right, it creates curiosity, and you’re not bored because you don’t see it, and then you have a change in the light or a character steps into the light, so you see everything clearly again. We were really in love with finding those rhythms in the light and the shadow.
SC: And thinking about those effects with the light, that reminds me of the moment in the film when one of the girls, Lenka, takes her top off to run through the sprinkler, and you choose to obscure the man who she knows is looking at her. How did you decide to visually depict the way that girls feel men looking at them in the way that you did?
MS: Yeah, and when Lenka is running through the sprinkler, she says something like, “I can’t even remember the man, but I know his gaze. I can feel it.” So, during the writing process, I realized this is a film about a century of women being looked at, and now we want these women to be able to look back. So, we’re all equipped with eyes, we’re all looking, but there is a difference when it comes to trauma because women know a certain gaze that men don’t know.
SC: That’s something that I felt so viscerally when I was watching this film. It’s just something that men don’t know in the same way.
MS: Exactly, and I wanted to show that sometimes it’s just one look that can change your entire life.
SC: That’s exactly right. We also see how girls mimic each other and what they see across the different time periods.
MS: Yeah. That’s right.
SC: I’m still thinking about how you open the film with Erika tying her leg up like it’s been amputated, like her uncle. What made you decide to explore that feeling?
MS: Yeah, so this is so curious because this was not the first picture in the screenplay, but it was the first picture that I wrote. During the editing process, this became the first picture. In the screenplay, the first picture was this flying scene, and during the editing process, it became the last one. It’s interesting because, like you said, it’s about imitation. All of these girls have this subconscious longing to be, for once, in this world without anything having been imprinted on them or anything having come before them, almost like a clean slate. It’s, of course, not realistic, but they all have this longing, and that’s what they share. Basically, as soon as we come into the world, we immediately learn and are imprinted upon, so there is no escaping that loop, right? We’re immediately confronted with our parents and their story. So it’s that illusion of the clean slate. And with Erika, it’s also about trying to do something better or different. She’s thinking, you can’t even walk if you have one leg, so she wants to try and convince him that he can get out of this depression.
SC: Now that audiences are seeing the film, and you can reflect back on your creative process, do you find that your feelings about the initial women in that photograph have deepened or changed at all?
MS: I think both. What I love so much about this project is that it was my first feature out of film school, and we were so limited in budget. For me, it’s really like a miracle in a way that I can see this film, and I really have the feeling that it’s exactly what I had in mind when we were writing. It’s exactly what I wanted to explore and the fact that we could find a language to describe this invisible thing. To describe the thoughts that people know in a way, but that we don’t speak about often. With these women, I don’t know where they are now, but there’s one special story because after shooting, I came back to this farm to clean up something and I found a journal in the barn from 1910 from a woman or a girl, and her name is Bertha…
SC: Oh, that’s incredible.
MS: Right? And there is a Bertha in our script and our film. One of the maids is Bertha, and I can’t believe I found it after the movie was done! But it felt like now she’s giving me her secret after this. Maybe her journal is very profound, I have no clue. It’s in old German script, so I need to ask my mother to read it for me (Laughs).
SC: That’s amazing. You have to read it.
MS: I think so too.
SC: Well, thank you both so much for speaking with me today and for this wonderful film.
FG: Thank you so much.
MS: Yes, thank you for having us. And thank you for your wonderful questions.
MUBI will release Sound of Falling in U.S. theaters on January 16.
- Interview: Mascha Schilinski and Fabian Gamper on Crafting a Memory Piece and Exploring Transgenerational Trauma in ‘Sound of Falling’ - January 15, 2026
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