RITUS

The Story

Every 18 years, as the moon turns, children go missing in the small village of Seelendorf. When it happens again, the disappearances are only the beginning: the lake’s water turns black, and a girl surfaces with visions no one can explain.

Selin is haunted by blackouts and memories that aren’t her own. Together with her mother Yasemin, she sets out to trace her origins. Meanwhile, Henri searches desperately for his missing brother, whose nightmares led him to the same lake. There, Detective Berger discovers the body of a girl who vanished 18 years ago — her body untouched by time, as if perfectly preserved.

As more bodies emerge and Selin’s visions grow ever more disturbing, every clue points toward ancient legends surrounding the lake. And as the night of the moon’s turning draws closer, Berger, Yasemin, Selin and Henri are pulled deeper into the secrets of Seelendorf — a battle waged on the threshold between life and death, and the question of who our souls truly belong to in the end.

The Music

Composing the original score for RITUS, the six-part mystery thriller series for ARD Mediathek, meant finding a distinct sonic identity for each of the story’s layers — and then figuring out how they could all live together in one cohesive film score.

The ritualistic, cult-like elements at the heart of RITUS needed to feel ancient and raw. For this part of the soundtrack, I turned to scratchy, weathered textures: hurdy-gurdy, deep chant-like vocals, and folkloric instrumentation that feels dug up from the earth rather than composed. In contrast, the black water — the show’s central mystery — demanded a harder, colder sound design: deep, synthetic, and menacing tones that feel like they don’t belong to this world at all.

But underneath the mythology, RITUS is a story about people. So each of the four leads — Berger, Selin, Yasemin, and Henri — received their own musical signature within the score: a specific instrument, a melodic twist that arrives the moment we’re with them, a way of saying “we’re in your world now.”

The real challenge, and the real joy, of composing music for this mystery thriller was weaving all of these threads together — the rituals, the water, the characters — into one coherent horror film score that could shift and combine as the story demanded, while building steadily in intensity from episode to episode. Scoring horror also meant walking a fine line: knowing when to pull back into silence, letting tension build before a scare could land, and never letting the music say more than the moment needed.

Bringing all of these elements into balance — motifs colliding, receding, and resurfacing across all six episodes — was one of the most rewarding composing challenges I’ve worked on as a film composer.

Credits

Director: Jonathan B. Behr
Cast: Moritz Bleibtreu, Anna Shirin Habedank, Seyneb Saleh, Maximilian Mundt, Alma Hasun, Julika Jenkins a.o.

Screenwriters: Viola M. J. Schmidt, Maximilian Baumgartner, Jonathan B. Behr
Cinematographer
: Martin L. Ludwig
Editors: Felix Karte, Denys Darahan
Production Designer: Angelika Dufft
Costume Designer: Alexandra Wasserthal-Zuccari
Makeup Artist: Martina Wolf
Composer: Peter Albrecht
Casting Director: Peti Misaila
Production: MadeFor Film, commissioned by ARD Degeto and Hessischer Rundfunk (hr)
Producer: Nanni Erben
Producer: Rene Colling
Festivals: Filmfest München 2026 (World Premiere), Bernd Burgemeister Award nomination 

Stills

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