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Germany 2025
Opening August 28, 2025

Directed by: Mascha Schilinski
Writing credits: Louise Peter, Mascha Schilinski
Principal actors: Lena Urzendowsky, Lea Drinda, Luise Heyer, Laeni Geiseler, Susanne Wuest, Hanna Heckt

Treading softly across epochs and then dashing carefree through the farmhouse’s interconnecting corridors and stairways, movement is more careful in the outbuildings, courtyard, and fields. The farmhouse, remotely nestled in the Altmark along the lazy, swirling river separating yet forming part of the western regions border, harbors secrets portending to a life of its own. German director Mascha Schilinski and co-writer Louise Peter’s prizewinning screenplay, written over a three-year period, ties the destinies of Alma (ten-year-old Hanna Heckt), Erika (Lea Drinda, twenty-four), Angelika (Lena Urzendowsky, twenty-five) and Lenka (fourteen-year-old Laeni Geiseler) as each spend a portion of their girlhood here during differing decades, eerily echoing what came before until time itself blurs into infinity.

The intergenerational intrigues are dramatically cloaked in games and laughter, subsiding into secrets, keyhole spying, death, and subterfuge. Tagging along with Fabian Gamper’s exemplary cinematography into the opening narrative, seven-year-old Alma is chasing a prank with her sisters into gloomy guilt and a death shrouded mystery set during candlelit years surrounding warfare in the early 20th century. Young Fritz (Filip Schnack), bedridden after a “work accident,” is an observer under attendant Trudi’s (Luzia Oppermann) care, herself a recipient of callousness. Noticing everything, Alma’s questions are brushed aside. The 1940s introduce Erika, atremble with untoward fascination for “Uncle Fritz” (Martin Rother), accompanied by musings about an amputee’s movements. Sliding sideways into 1980s fun: Albat (Andreas Anke) mischievously relocates Irm’s (Claudia Geisler-Bading) Trabant, barnyard fêtes include raucous eel-catching races, and elusive otherworldly interconnectedness expands. Angelika’s desires glide unremitting from Uncle Uwe (Konstantin Lindhorst) to dancing suggestively for friends, while her cousin Rainer (Florian Geißelmann) squirms. The river’s boundaries-blurring courses strong current is a harbinger of enigmatic interlopers, and puzzling phenomenon. Mobile phones, night-wandering children (Ninel Geiger), the strike of a sledgehammer to strokes of gals racing, while from the riverbank Lenka (Laeni Geiseler) observes. The here and now does not diminish the who or where, what or why.

The exceptional cast of seasoned thespians and newcomers were culled from over 1,400 girls auditioning for the four main roles during the yearlong process. According to Schilinski, they looked for characteristics compatible with each time period; clearly, face structure and coloring were important since oftentimes it is near impossible to differentiate between actresses among shifting timelines—one viewing might not be enough.

Macabre post-mortem turn-of-the-century “death” photographs are almost indulged in another generation; the farmyard and river provide sources for primal urges. Challenging surely for editor Evelyn Rack’s sure-handed astuteness, albeit the authenticity reflected in Cosima Vellenzer’s production design and Sabrina Krämer’s costumes provide dependable bearings. Michael Fiedler and Eike Hosenfeld’s embracing score bind the historical, feminine mystic and miseries, fears, traumas, and the mundane. Mascha Schilinski’s In die Sonne Schauen’s world premiere at the 78th Cannes International Film Festival, 2025 garnered the Jury Prize for her, only the second German director (Konrad Wolf, Sterne, 1959) in its history. 149 minutes (Marinell H.)