Sandra Wollner, who has built an unmistakable world of her own across two films, now presents a truly astonishing work. A mother, her young daughter, and a young man set off on a long-postponed trip to Tenerife. Death is a theme running through all three of her films. As the title of her previous film, The Trouble with Being Born, suggests, this film desperately holds onto life’s moments—agonizing, radiant, and fragile all at once. This is because a glimpse of sunlight, once gone, never returns. The recurring game imagery suggests that reality is ’something that existed but was lost, or something that never existed but plausibly could have, or something one wishes existed.’ Wollner’s shadowrich films demand to be seen on the big screen, and in the six-minute sequence where the camera drifts before a massive building, you’ll need to keep your eyes wide open. Everytime is a controversial masterpiece. To be captivated by something is a dangerous thing.
Sandra Wollner was born in Leoben, Austria in 1983 and studied documentary directing at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. She is now based in Berlin. Her debut feature, The Impossible Picture (2016), announced her arrival as a rising talent, winning the German Film Critics′ Award for Best Feature Film and the Ingmar Bergman International Debut Award at the Göteborg Film Festival. Her graduation film and second feature, The Trouble with Being Born (2020), won the Special Jury Prize in the Encounters section at the Berlinale, followed by the Austrian Film Award for Best Film and Best Director, as well as the German Film Critics′ Award for Best Feature Film and Best Cinematography. Her third feature, Everytime, follows a mother, daughter, and boy bound by tragedy as they take a family trip that never happened, confronting loss and grief, and won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
