BEFORE THE FALL at AFI FEST

(This is a series of brief unedited descriptions of films in the festival I found time to write about. There are MANY other great films playing at the fest but I only have time to write about these few.)

The world ends in three days.

The leaders of the world have just announced hat a comet is hurtling toward the earth, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Even worse, the mass of the object is so immense that there is no hope for any of us. You cannot hide, you cannot hope, in three days we will all be dead. Against this backdrop is the story of a small family in a Spanish village. They are a simple group but they have a troubled history. There is a disturbed man from their past who wants nothing more than to bring misery to the family, most likely through the smallest most innocent members of this clan. Luckily this man is locked safely away in prison but with the impending global catastrophe chaos begins to take hold, the prisons empty and the terror begins.

This is the premise for one of the most original genre films to come from anywhere in years. Quite simply the conflict is this; the world is ending in three days, but for one small Spanish family that isn’t soon enough. If they can live long enough to see the end of the world they might just avoid an even more horrific fate.

BEFORE THE FALL plays AFI FEST Sunday, November 2nd 1:30pm