A Time Before
Synopsis
We witness fragmented memories of a torn family - an abusive father, a mother whose memory seems faded, and a sister, Sally, encouraging her little brother to escape through imagination and dreams. As memory and fantasy blur, The Time Before becomes a meditation on the stories we tell ourselves to survive, and what is lost in the telling.
Official Selection Aesthetica Film Festival 2024
Details
- Year
- 2024
- Type of project
- Shorts
- Running time
- 12 min 43 sec
- Format
- 4K ProRes 422 HQ
- Director
-
Leo Metcalf
- Producer
- Leo Metcalf
- Editor
- Leo Metcalf
- Screenwriter
- Leo Metcalf
- Director of Photography
- Leo Metcalf
- Sound
- Harry J N Parsons
- Composer
- V.R. Alevizos
- Principal cast
- Anouk Lawless-Monnot; Simon Chambers; Bean Downes; Leo Metcalf
Genre
Production Status
Production Company
Sales Company
Page updates
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See also
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The Time Before
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Haunted by unanswered questions about himself, Olly journeys through his past. His story unfolds in two starkly contrasting realms: the raw simplicity of his childhood, captured in his own drawings, and the fluid, surreal world of his dreams. We glimpse the fractured memories of his early years: an abusive father, a mother lost in the haze of the past, and his sister Sally, a beacon who urged him to find escape and control within his own imagination, transforming nightmares into refuges from reality. Official Selection Raindance Film Festival 2025 - World premiere Official Selection Venice International Film Festival (Biennale Cinema) 2025 - International premiere
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When Arlo arrives to find Marcus has cooked someone else’s favourite meal, a single question begins to unravel an evening that refuses to stay in the present. Through a fractured timeline set entirely within one dining room, we move between Marcus and Arlo and the relationship that came before, with Una, the woman he met at a late-night bus stop and once talked about marrying. The same table, the same chairs, the same arguments about trust, honesty and what it means to truly see someone. As the timelines bleed together, it becomes clear that Marcus has never fully left the past, and that Una’s ghost sits at every table he sets. When Arlo asks what her own favourite meal is and he cannot answer, the film’s quiet devastation lands completely. CLOCKS is a portrait of a man who loves generously but sees poorly, and the women who carry the cost. It asks what we owe the person in front of us while we are still in love with someone we lost, and whether a feeling ever truly ends.