Director-screenwriter Aylin Tezel also plays the lead role, Kirat, in her debut film. This marks Tezel's first full-length film as a director, having been previously recognized in Germany as a film actress. Her maiden directorial work is a delicate, tender, and nuanced story about the end of one relationship, the process of overcoming heartbreak, and the beginning of another. Interwoven into this narrative are explorations of creative individuals seeking their outlets, finding their paths in art and music creation, as well as relationships with parents and colleagues. The film features powerful dialogues, significant pauses, abundant scenic beauty, and a genuine gallery of emotions ranging from sorrow and pain to joy and liberation. It's a multifaceted and captivating film that I recommend to all who appreciate compelling psychological drama.

You are the main star in this film and also a screenwriter and an actress. This seems to be a very intimate film, it is poetic and emotional. Is this film a bit based on true events in your or somebody's life? Please describe, how did you come up with the idea of this film, how long was the process from the first thought to the first shooting day? Was it a hard decision to direct the film yourself?

I was walking through Victoria Park in London with a friend of mine. We talked about dreams. It was my dream to make a feature film as a writer and director, she wanted to create a performance piece. Our dreams seemed so big against where we found ourselves in life at that moment. So I said to her: „Maybe we have to start with the first tiny step“. I invented a game for us. I set a timer for 30 minutes and said: „We each have to write either a scene, a poem, or a song“. We both sat down and started writing. Instantly a dialogue came through me that started like this: A man says to a woman: „Life is just a repetition of distractions to make you forget that you’ll die…until you die.“ The woman answers: „Really?! That’s why we’re sent here? To distract ourselves from ourselves?“ Four years and a pandemic later Scottish actor Chris Fulton is that man, IAN, I am that woman, KIRA, and we’re saying those lines while sitting at the harbour of Portree on the Scottish island Isle of Skye in the light of dawn, shooting the very first scene of our film FALLING INTO PLACE.

There are not so many people who are acting in the main role of the film that they are directing themselves, was it hard for you? What was the most challenging or rewarding thing in that process? I know that you have done one short film where you also had all the three important roles: directing, writing and acting. Please describe the difference of your experiences between doing the short film and now a full length feature.

It was a whole different world for me to write and direct a feature film. Of course I had learned a lot during filming those shorts, like what you find out about the material you shot once you go into the process of editing. But the years that go into developing, prepping, filming and finalising a feature film taught me something else: to be patient, to be resilient, to be strong, brave and to trust. I guess the biggest challenge in working in those three positions simultaneously was during the shooting days when I basically didn’t have a break just because the workload was immense. On the other hand my team and I were very well prepared and I was blessed with extremely talented, dedicated and kind actors and team members and supportive producers. Everyone on set was hardworking and passionate about the film. I was lucky that all these sweet souls were sent to me to help me create the film and honestly to be able to direct the script I had written was pure bliss. It was beautiful to be there throughout the whole process. From the very first word on the page, through giving a voice, face and soul to one of the main characters, until the very last cut in the edit and the last sound decision in the mix. I loved being present for every little step of the creative process.

To this day you are more known as an actress, you have been acting in many TV-series and TV films, you have been chosen the best TV actress. What is the difference for you – doing television or a film on the big screen?
First of all, as a recipient I’d say it’s a very different experience to watch a film in a cinema - surrounded by other film lovers, with fantastic sound and visual conditions and no distractions through phones - or at home on the couch where one pauses a film a thousand times. I guess there’s pros and cons to both. On TV you can reach a huge audience. In a cinema you can create a more focused space for your audience. I’m happy though that we made a film for the big screen with FALLING INTO PLACE. It allowed my Director of Photography Julian Krubasik to really capture the visual beauty and magic of our locations on the Isle of Skye and it suits the intimate tone of the film that the audience will receive the film in the intimate atmosphere of a cinema.

Your film has well thought dialogues – many witty lines and many wise thoughts in it. What do you think is important in the film, are the spoken words the dialogue? Was there any room for improvisation during the filming? Many films today have more than one screenwriter, you worked alone. Did you ever think that you need someone to be your co-author? How many drafts did you write before the final version?

Of course we went through many script drafts over the years, always in a close collaboration with my German producers Yvonne McWellie and Jakob and Jonas Weydemann from Weydemann Bros as well as with our Scottish Co-Producer John McKay. It’s an interesting process, because there’s lots of things to consider on the way, not necessarily only on a content level. We also needed to consider financial aspects when we got closer to the shoot. We didn’t shoot in a studio, we filmed on location. So questions arose like: How many shooting days do we have, how many locations can we shoot in one day, how many locations do we need to lose from the story in order to stay on schedule?

Now when it came to the dialogue I always felt very open to ideas from my actors. Already in the audition process I used improvisation for some of the scenes and gave my actors the room to make the dialogue their own. Most of the scenes were done by the book though but for some of them it just made sense to open up the space for something unexpected. So for me it was really this mix of a well thought through script and the room for the actors to bring their own ideas and their very individual charm and wit to the table.

Your film is about romantic love and love in general, love towards family members, love towards oneself, coping with mental difficulties and the "sand in the heart". It is rather slow-paced and thoughtful. Some film critics would say that it is a feminine film and a film made for women. What do you think? Are there masculine and feminine films, films that are suitable or understandable more for one gender than the other?

We portray a man’s and a woman’s journeys in the film. Both come with their different character traits. Ian is fiery, charming, flirtatious and funny on the one hand, but short-tempered and aggressive on the other hand. Kira is more contemplative and observant, showing a light and honest side in her connection with Ian, but later in the film we also get to explore a very vulnerable and pained side to her. They both meet in their hidden loneliness, in their (self-)destructive tendencies but also in their deep rooted hope for emotional closeness. I believe that not only those two characters but also the main topics in the film, love and loss, stand for very human aspects in our being and so are points of identification for cross-generational female, male and gender neutral audience members and do not target only a specific group of viewers. It’s a film that speaks to everyone who has and will experience love and loneliness in their lives.

Why did you choose the film setting to be placed in Scotland and in London? Is there any particular reason why you chose these locations? What did you like about these places, had you been there before, were there any good memories?

When I sat down in a little café to start writing the script it happened to be in Edinburgh, Scotland. I guess that’s why the story starts in Scotland. I knew that Kira and Ian would meet in a smaller place far away from their day-to-day life in the metropolis of London. But I only had a dreamy and somehow blurry idea about that „place by the sea“. Only later when I did a first location tour and was faced with the astonishing beauty of the Scottish Highlands and particularly the Isle of Skye I understood how important the choice would be for the place where Kira and Ian spent those intense 36 hours together. There’s something melancholic and magical in the landscape and the weather of this particular place in the world that I knew would set the tone right for the rest of the film.

You have used both nature and countryside and city locations. Both places you have filmed through the night and early morning when there is nobody around, everything in nature is open and empty, everything in the city is closed and empty, there is the light and a character with their aching or longing souls. Main character describes the man through the light. Did you have a lot to say about the light and locations, how tight was your cooperation with artists and light department? Please describe the work process of the visual part of the film.

To approach a common visual language, my DOP Julian Krubasik and I watched a lot of films together. We talked about camera lenses, colours, camera movement, acting style, light, costume and overall look and feel of those films. Some films we examined because we liked certain aspects about them, like the way that Andrea Arnold dealt with nature in her version of „Wuthering Heights“. We loved Sturla Brandth Grøvlen’s hand held camera in Thomas Vinterberg’s „Another round“. And the way that Drake Doremus and his actors worked with improvisational elements in his film „Like Crazy“. We also included our production designer Andy Drummond very early in the creative visual process. I was a big fan of his work after having watched Harry Wootliff „Only You“ for which Andy did the production design. He and his art team provided us with really amazing sets, both in our more isolated Isle of Skye world as well as in all our London locations. One of the challenges was that because of funding and logistical reasons we had to film some of our London locations in Glasgow, Scotland and in North Rhine Westphalia, Germany. I had a specific idea about the world of colours in the film. Especially as the main character Kira uses certain colours for the people she portrays in her paintings. So we had an overall colour scheme which was based on the colours that one finds in the autumn landscape on the Isle Skye which was then added by some stronger influences like the typical red of the London busses once we arrive in London with the story and get to meet Kira’s ex boxfriend Aidan, who also brings that certain red into the picture.

Does this film contain your favorite music and your thoughts about the music? Did you have a clear vision of what the soundtrack should contain? Please describe your working with your music writers and the soundtrack part.

We were blessed with two outstanding composers. Jon Hopkins is a London based Mercury Award winner who has gained worldwide fame with his electronic music albums Singularity and Immunity as well as with his ambient music and his collaborations with Coldplay and Brian Eno. He is also a beautiful pianist and when he said to me after reading the script that he would like to be a part of the film, we decided that he would write the piano pieces that our main character Ian creates in the story. For the rest of the score Jon recommended Berlin based composer Ben Lukas Boysen who did the score for The Lazarus Project which just received the Welsh BAFTA. Furthermore we chose a lot of songs for the film. Many of them were actually suggested by my editor David J. Achilles, who met me in my love for music. We chose music from Australian singer-songwriter Angie McMahon, American musician William Fitzsimmons, the Scottish band Idlewild and Icelandic Axel Flóvent just to name a few of them. We also have two live music scenes with Australian Stu Larsen as well as Scottish Jaqueline Irvine with her band Brave Little Note.

All the main characters are working in artistic areas: theatre, painting, sound, songwriting. They are emotionally vulnerable and need some sort of push to the right direction. Sometimes it is criticism and sometimes encouragement. What is your personal experience and journey to making this film? Is it harder to be a female film director?

I don’t know how it feels to be a male director. All I can say is that I love being female and being a director. I certainly brought a strong feminin energy into the whole project but so did my team and my cast members, independent from their gender. We had a kind set. The atmosphere was creative, warm, and focused. We supported each other and there was always room for vulnerability as much as there was room for strength. I can wholeheartedly say that I always felt supported. Now of course I’m at the beginning of my journey as a filmmaker and I suppose my future experiences will be diverse. But I believe that the world needs more feminine energy and that it’s time to make room for it.

Tell us a bit about the future plans, do you continue directing and writing films for cinema? Are there any other projects, maybe some TV-series or something like that? Please describe in a few sentences the work in progress.

For now my priority is accompanying my film into the world. And yes, I would love to continue my work as a writer and director beside my work as an actor. I’m currently developing new material and hoping to be able to come back to Tallinn Film Festival with future films.

Last but not least, this is the question for all the debut film makers this year: Please tell us one wise advice that you would give to your child – what is important in life?
To love.