Voting for the Oscar shortlists is ongoing, including in the Best International Film category. Here's Eurocheese talking with Evelyn Rack, the extraordinary editor of Germany's Sound of Falling...
SOUND OF FALLING (2025) Mascha Schilinski | © MUBI
(Please note - this interview contains SPOILERS in you haven't seen the film.)
EUROCHEESE: Congratulations on Sound of Falling. I was able to catch it at AFI fest this year – it was my favorite film at the festival. It such a unique viewing experience – so different from anything that I've seen in a long time, and I'm really excited to get to talk to you about it today. First of all, I just wanted to find out a little bit about how the project came to you.
EVELYN RACK: The producer Maren Schmitt approached me – we had worked on other projects before and she told me listen Eva, I have this amazing script from this awesome director; you have to come on board, I know you're the right one. So she sent me the script, I opened it, and on the first page before anything else there was a quote from Bresson: “I'd rather have people feel a film before understanding it.” My heart skipped a beat because I feel like it's exactly my editing approach on every film that I edit, that I seek to really feel a film rather than understanding it...
I met Mascha (Schilinski, the director) on Zoom, we had a really short chat, and instantly we knew we would go on this journey together. That’s how I came on board, and it was maybe half a year before shooting.
EUROCHEESE: That really describes the way – when you’re coming into the film, you’re just feeling your way through. It's the editing that helps lead you to where you are going. I'd love to hear a little bit about your conversations with Mascha – it sounds like you already had the [story] structure in place, where the editing was going to lead [the audience] through the story because it's very disorienting. You don't exactly know where you are at first (intentionally), so I wanted to talk just a little bit about your relationship with her and how you had that conversation from the beginning.
EVELYN RACK: The moment that really clicked for both of us in the first meeting was when I said, listen I read the script, and I have the feeling that we might need to rearrange the scenes massively after the shooting.
She said, yes I know – that's exactly what we're going to do, because they were doing it already with writing the script. We talked about it a lot; an experience like this, you can't predict how it's going to feel when you experience it, watching it. What really impresses me to this day is in the script they have written all the characters, and all the stories that are in the script are in the final film. It's so many characters and so many small, tiny side stories. This was all in the script, and we just had to rearrange it. When we watched the first rough cut that was structured like the script, it was hard even to understand that everything is happening at the same place, just at different times, which was confusing for us, but also not surprising. We started freely playing around with having an ancestral stream of collective memory guiding us as an editing principle: If all these characters were 100 million years in the future and were remembering what happened back then, how would it start? And how would this story unfold? So it changed a lot from the script.
EUROCHEESE: So the script [originally] had each timeline written separately?
EVELYN RACK: Yes
EUROCHEESE: Oh wow, it must have taken so much storyboarding and picturing how you wanted to map out each single [plot] point. The way that the film jumps around – emotionally it always feels true, even when you're relying so hard on what's happening within each scene to help direct you. [The scenes involve] living through emotions, because you don't quite understand what's happening at the beginning.
EVELYN RACK: We had all these scenes, and we were like, okay, it's obviously not working in the way it was scripted – that was our starting point. We tried to solve it with our brains, which didn’t work out. So for example, in the script, one of the last scenes when Nelly, the child from the 2020s is jumping from the hayloft, was more or less the first scene of the film. Also, Alma and older sister walking on the field flying, it was also the beginning of the film.
EUROCHEESE: That's so different [from the final version].
EVELYN RACK: If you start like this, everything afterwards feels like you want to solve what happened to this girl. Why did she jump? [It would become] an investigative story. We tried to figure out, what could be a way where we fully immerse into one character's mind or perspective first. We stay for quite a long time in the beginning with Alma, the girl in the 1910s. If you see the structure of the whole film, it's not in the rhythm of the rest of the film, [staying for] 20 or 25 minutes with Alma before we have the first real-time shift.
There were so many possibilities and options. Whatever we did, it felt like it was too confusing. We decided we had to immerse and take the perspective of every main character seriously, making it easy to dive into their stories and points of views. After that, everything can unfold and we don't mind if we are jumping back and forth, [which] gave us a lot of freedom.
EUROCHEESE: The film feels like it can go anywhere at any time, which is so exciting. You mentioned mystery – one of the things I had written down was the use of spying, especially with that little girl. As the audience, [we feel] we are peeking in on things that we shouldn't be allowed to see. That gives you a sort of remove, but then the performances really suck you back in emotionally with each thread that they're pulling on. When you're [choosing] the scenes: Do you focus on the visuals? How do you make choices there as far as what you want to put forward with each scene?
EVELYN RACK: We had to rely on our gut feelings, saying it just feels right. There were a million choices we could have taken. In the beginning, aesthetically but also in a narrative way, it needed to be more grounded and more settled. We figured out early on that the voiceovers had to gradually come in as if the characters find their own voices throughout, as they dive deeper into their memories. There were some time jumps in the script; for example, a crowd of people are standing in the yard in the 1910s, and there was a dead child on the floor. Then there was a cut and children of the 2020s are sitting in the yard and listening to music. It’s one of the scenes that is now in the end where they are sitting and having ice cream. This [cut] did not work out at all – it was such a big emotional jump from a dead child to children eating ice cream. You were so bamboozled – you couldn't figure out what is even in the same place.
We figured out a certain aesthetic needed to be matched; for example, if in 1910s the girls are sleeping in the beds, we can jump to the 2020s when the family is sleeping. This was a time dump that worked very well. Also in the 1910s, Alma is talking to her sisters after she's seen for the first time this picture of her dead sister Alma. She's lying there and she's afraid but also fascinated by death. In the 2020s, the child Nelly is waking up [from] having a nightmare. Emotionally, the lights and the sensuality of the scenes were fitting, so we figured out it needs to be arranged in a certain way. Certain things needed to match so we could do a time jump.
There are themes, such as the death. [Those scenes] needed to be connected in one part of the film, which happens at the end. All the scenes where we experience violence against women are in the same section. We needed these connecting points. But this is a theory that I'm now making up, because in the end, sometimes it felt right and sometimes not. (laughs) We trusted our feelings.
EUROCHEESE: With the characters, you get little pieces so each of them are a mystery, but also you start forming your own opinions of each of them based on the pieces that you see. They have such different personalities, so even though they're all going through such harsh circumstances, it distinguishes all of them in your mind.
Every shot of this just feels like it could be posted on wall – it's gorgeous. Progressively things get more dreamlike – when you're talking about flying and at the end, [we] are onboard to go wherever we're going. Talk to me about that progression.
EVELYN RACK: This is a progression we developed in the editing; it would have been more intermingled [otherwise]. We felt [it would be better] to have the form of the film be its own narrative that can also evolve through time.
The cinematography from Fabian Gamper is just incredible – I never get footage like that. It felt so precious. The acting is [also] so brilliant – it’s breathtaking. Mascha and Fabian together precisely planned camera movements we could use in the editing, [having a] floating camera that was moving from one timeline or one place to another.
There is one scene I love in particular, when Angelica is lying on the swing, watching her parents at the garden party and she wishes for her heart to stop, but it just won't stop. It was so bold of Fabian to decide that the camera [would] just move up and down like it’s the gaze of Angelica. Then the picture gets grainy, like memory gets grainy itself, and you can't really see what is happening. Then the picture frame turns upside down. It's innovative in so many ways, and yet still it never feels conceptual – it just feels right.
You asked before about the work together with Mascha – it felt like we became a shared mind. We could be the extensions of ourselves, which was amazing because we could really work on this common vision. We had additional editor, Billie Mind, on the film and she's also the sound designer. The conception of the sound design happened within the editing. She could work [for example] on crickets in the 2020s that become louder and louder; then we have a time shift and you hear the crickets, still loud but they are slightly different. This collaboration of so many great artists was really amazing.
EUROCHEESE: One of the words I wrote down about the film was tactile. The mystery of it heightens all your other sentences – you're just trying to feel and understand so much that it helps you delve into everything. It's very exciting in that way.
It feels like this film is announcing Mascha as a major talent, and you have such a starring role in the editing because there's so much that we have to be able to follow. Where did you start to see connections in the storylines thematically, and where you were going to include the audience into that?
EVELYN RACK: Sometimes we tried to put ourselves into the audience’s vision, but quickly we discovered it’s one layer too much in solving this puzzle. The whole time we thought, How do we get all these stories and all these characters into this one film? Kill your darlings is not a concept that I believe in, and neither does [Mascha]. So we felt like, wow, this whole film is a film of darlings. There is not even one scene that is just there to fulfill a purpose, like introducing a character. We were finding the right spot where everything and everyone could be part of the film, which was a big challenge. One particular sequence that was hard to include was when Fritz from the 1910s timeline, the brother of Alma, loses his leg. When and how to explain [that moment was crucial], as it was necessary to the mother of Alma and where her trauma comes from. It was so important to get him into the story, and it was the last piece we found the perfect spot for.
EUROCHEESE: They throw around that term “work accident” and then when that comes back later, that hits much harder. There are so many twists in the film that by the end, you know there are more twists coming, but every single time it hits emotionally.
I know you worked on the voiceovers – I mentioned the dreamlike sense of the film and it feels like we're revisiting scenes through the memory of different characters. You feel like you're in a gray area of what's reality and what’s symbolic. I wanted to ask about creating that atmosphere.
EVELYN RACK: The voiceovers were a big part in the script, but they changed throughout the editing. We thought the voiceovers should start with something really innocent, so the first is Alma remembering her mother needed to puke. Everyone noticed, but no one is reacting. She's also waiting for the blink of an eye of her mother. It’s really naive, really cute voiceover, then it becomes more honest in a way, like [the characters] gain their memories and they gain their voice. We were in the editing room and we had a small setup where we could do voice recording. Mascha was improvising and speaking the words directly into the scenes.
We also invited some of the actresses into the editing room and they did some recordings for us.
One of the voiceovers that was not in the script, that turned out to be one of my favorite parts is when Rainer, the cousin of Angelica in the 1980s [gives a voiceover], which is really unexpected because we are in the world and trauma of the four main characters. At one point in the film we hear Alma’s sister Lia talking about what happened to the maids, so those are the two “special voiceovers.” It had to be Lia’s voice since [what happened to the maids] was so connected to Lia. It has a lot of depth when she is talking about her own story. Shortly after the shooting, Mascha came into the editing room and she said, I feel like Rainer might be a special main character. I really love this about Mascha because the concept of the film is that we have the four female main protagonists, and we are in their minds – then she just comes in and says there’s something that’s off, and I feel like something else would be even better. If it’s a shared connected ancestral memory, gender might not matter anymore. He is connected to Angelica and Angelica leaves, so I think we need also his perspective. This was an amazing decision, and I was impressed that she was so open-minded. When I listen to [that voiceover], it gives me goosebumps every time.
EUROCHEESE: The film, because it's so experimental, feels almost playful, but you're dealing with these heavy topics. It gives an interesting contrast, [where] you don't know where to land as far as what you're feeling, but that also makes it exciting, because anything can happen. I wanted to know what conversations you had about overall tone and how that factored into putting the puzzle pieces together.
EVELYN RACK: I'm happy that you mention it, because apart from doing the puzzle we have all this playfulness: we have black holes, we have grainy images. The challenge for the editing was that I've never seen scenes like this, so there was no recipe. When we started, [we considered] how does memory itself work? How do we experience memory? And of course, I don't know how you perceive memory – I just know how I do, how it feels for me. Then we thought, How does it feel organic or natural in a way, that doesn't feel like we put the concept over the emotions (which can I think easily happen)?
The shooting was really challenging and at the same time, it was so much fun. It was raining all the time, and it was 32 days of shooting with children in Germany, which means you just have two and a half hours per day that you can shoot with them. The farm was flooded several times so the shooting itself had these two sides: This joyfulness and at same time, the chaos. The whole process of making the film was always these two sides: the big challenge vs the big joy.
EUROCHEESE: With the setting being the same and that being such a central theme, there are scenes where it almost feels magical in a way. With so much tragedy tied to it, maybe dark magic. It feels like there's a presence that's there, though you would have to spend time thinking about what that presence is.
EVELYN RACK: Definitely. Normally the actors from the different times would not meet while shooting, but there was some chaos with the weather. [Mascha] was sitting there and they were preparing a scene for the 1980s, and people from the 1910s were just walking over the yard. She was like, “Wow, what's happening?” (laughs) It's just a small anecdote because at that time, it felt magical.
EUROCHEESE: Are there any particular scenes or choices that you were particularly proud of, that you'd call out as far as favorites?
EVELYN RACK: I think one challenging character for us was Irm, the mother of Angelica in the 1980s, [who is also] the sister also of Erica in the 1940s, who took her own life in the river. We felt like it was important to be able to understand what she's going through, but since we were in the perspective of Angelica, it felt like we were left outside. We made this decision in the editing that we can give her a small fragment of memory. When they do the birthday prank, when she’s sitting in the car and everyone around her is so happy, singing, chanting, celebrating her, and she's just sitting there frozen – you couldn't understand what was happening to her. It felt a bit off, so we came up with this idea to give her these small fragments of memory. The image of an eel and the water appear, then cut to the face of Irm, still sitting frozen, and then we see this girl going into the river. With this intercutting between fragments of memory, you could really understand Irm and what she was going through. Also, it was a tool for us to make Erica, her sister, more present in the film. In the original script, she had just three scenes. Now she appeared seven times throughout the film, so we featured Erica more and gave her a more of a presence. When these small glimpses come up, I feel really proud.
There is also a time when they are catching the eels in the yard; eels come up in the fragments of memory again, and then we cut to this hay tunnel with Alma running through it. These were decisions that were immersive with the characters and evolved through the editing that I really loved.
EUROCHEESE: Watching with an audience, you could hear people say, “Oh!” when they figured things out. (laughs) The reception of the film has been fantastic – very well deserved. How has that experience been for you? As the award season continues on, it's going to be getting more and more acclaim.
EVELYN RACK: Obviously it's amazing, but at the same time, totally unexpected. It’s her debut film and we had no sales agent on the board when we were accepted to the Cannes competition, so we did not expect this. As you said, this film feels so unique in so many ways, and it does things that we are not used to. It could have easily just [become] a small B movie somewhere. I love every second of the film and can watch it over and over again, but I really love that the audience can open up to this experience. Film is such a young art form, but it feels like it’s [set] in stone sometimes. Doing this film for me, it felt like I can breathe again. I can play again. And still, with all the playfulness it can be dark, it can be about essential things of life. It makes me really happy, It was really unexpected for us.
EUROCHEESE: Well congratulations, it was incredible. I honestly can't think of another film where I've had a similar viewing experience in a theater. It was just so unique and so brilliant. Hopefully we'll be hearing more and more about it as the season continues.
EVELYN RACK: Thank you so much.
Sound of Falling is being distributed by MUBI in the US. While it doesn't have a release date yet, the film should arrive in theaters next year, after an awards-qualifying run in November.