Sandra Wollner's 'Everytime' Reinvents the Grief Film

Sandra Wollner's third feature, Everytime, an Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes, is playing in limited theaters now through 1-2 Special, with a wide release set for February 2027. The Austrian-based German filmmaker has taken the grief drama — what our source's critic David Ehrlich called an "infinitely beguiling" achievement — and rebuilt it around avatars, ambient sound and the banal corners where memory hides.

The premise is simple. After the death of teenager Jessie (Carla Hüttermann), her mother Ella (Birgit Minichmayr), her little sister Melli (Lotte Shirin Keiling) and her boyfriend Lux (Tristán López) form an unlikely family unit as they try to move on. Wollner sets most of the film a year after the death, a deliberate distance from the raw wound.

What does the video game have to do with grief?

The film layers in cut scenes from Vintage Story — not Minecraft, though Wollner understands the confusion — long before the real drama begins. The idea that Jessie would leave behind a game world Melli could play in was one of the film's first seeds.

"I thought, it's a way of a memorial I haven't seen so far," Wollner told IndieWire. "We have this whole world of avatars and gaming communities where people meet online and then if someone really goes out, their avatar might live forever in there and create a life on its own in a way."

No familiarity with the game is required. "I don't feel that you have to know anything," she said. Wollner is not a hardcore gamer herself, but the early access worlds of Vintage Story and Minecraft stirred her. "It felt like the 'Backrooms' phenomenon, but before the 'Backrooms' phenomenon," she said. "You're walking through infinite worlds that feel so big, but minimalistic in a way. And the sounds; a very ambient sound feels eerie and soothing at the same time."

How did motherhood change the film?

Wollner was editing the film when her daughter was born. Her longtime partner, writer and cinematographer Timm Kröger, also worked on the digital imaging. In the film's second half, the trio travels to Tenerife, Spain, where they find another baby who looks exactly like baby Jessie sitting in the same quiet resort space Jessie once occupied.

"We watched the scene again of baby Jessie sitting there, and we looked at each other," Wollner said. "I always understood what it means for me, but there, we really felt it for the first time, being a parent."

Why no big emotions on screen?

Wollner refused the histrionic route. Minichmayr and López never scream or sob. "I wasn't interested in these big emotions. That just felt too overwhelming," she said. "Sometimes we are made to believe that grief comes in these neat boxes to check: Now you're sad, now you're angry, now you accept. It's just this messy thing that you can feel for a very long time."

For young Keiling, Wollner held no other castings. "I just fell in love and thought, oh, she's exactly what I thought of Melli could be and even better." Keiling, who loves to draw, sketched scenes before performing them. Fellow filmmaker Juli Neuhaus served as kids' coach. "Actually for her, it was, I would say, like a very light shoot. Playful."

How was Jessie's death filmed?

Wollner shot the fall — Jessie plunging from a tall building while out with Lux — from roughly half a mile away, using a 3,000-millimeter consumer camera lens. "It feels really not OK," she said of the focal length. "Forbidden to be so close and too far away at the same time." Hüttermann's fall was shot in a studio; VFX supervisor Kariem Saleh combined it with the exterior footage. The script called for a bird to follow after the fall. "Unfortunately, no bird came in exactly that moment," Wollner said with a laugh; other birds were lensed and composited in. She estimated five usable takes in the right light.

The crew spent hours on sound alone. "I never really felt it until I sat at Cannes in the audience. And I heard the gasps for the first time and really it went through my bones," she said.

Audiences have debated the film's final scenes since Cannes. Wollner's aim: "You don't know what room you entered now, some kind of back room." And, she insists, everything seen at the end is true. The wide release in February 2027 will give far more viewers the chance to decide for themselves.