Germany Submits ‘Sound of Falling’ for Oscar for Best International Feature Film

Germany has officially selected Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling (In die Sonne schauen) as its submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 98th Academy Awards. The announcement was made by German Films, the national cinema organization.

Sound of Falling is a deep atmospheric drama weaving the lives of four women across different eras, all linked by the same rural farm in the Altmark region of Germany. It spans a century, tracing themes of confinement, trauma, and intergenerational memory. The ensemble cast includes Hanna Heckt, Lena Urzendowsky, Laeni Geiseler, Susanne Wuest, Luise Heyer, and Lea Drinda.

The film world premiered at Cannes Film Festival, and earned the prestigious Jury Prize, making Schilinski the first German woman to compete in Cannes’ main competition since 2016.

The selection was made by an independent expert jury appointed by German Films, the body that oversees Germany’s Oscar submissions. Sound of Falling emerged as Germany’s pick from a shortlist of five finalists that included Fatih Akin’s Amrum among others.

The jury praised the film in statement, saying, “Sound of Falling is formally uncompromising, emotionally existential, and artistically unique—a solitaire in German and international cinema. Spanning over a century, the film interweaves the lives of four women who fight against confinement, violence, and social constraints. A work of rare urgency, masterfully staged, poetic, universal, courageous. Sound of Falling is a physical experience that resonates and burns itself into the memory.”

Germany has won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (formerly Best Foreign Language Film) four times: The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) – directed by Volker Schlöndorff (West Germany, 1979); Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Afrika) – directed by Caroline Link (Germany, 2002); The Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen) – directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Germany, 2006); and All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues) – directed by Edward Berger (Germany, 2022).