Before the End (2020)

Before the End responds to the ethos and fanbase of the Before series while considering the impact of the pandemic on filmmaking, films, fans and characters too. Primarily, the work is an experiment with updating the Kuleshov effect for social media, that is, showing how the juxtaposition of images will be read by a cinema audience as narrative, even though the projection of emotional connections between the images is, as here, entirely the construct of the audience. For study purposes. This simulation of a fourth ‘Before’ film for the pandemic sees Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) on a video call during lockdown in 2020, separated, and unwittingly recreating the scene in the record booth from Before Sunrise. The video incorporates footage from the Q&As that Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy did with Cameron Bailey for TIFF Originals on 30 April and 12 May 2020 respectively.