THE END WE START FROM
2023 | 102min | SunnyMarch, Hera Pictures, Anton, C2, BFI & BBC
When an environmental crisis sees London submerged by flood waters, a young family is torn apart in the chaos. As a woman (Jodie Comer) and her newborn try and find their way home, the profound novelty of motherhood is brought into sharp focus in this intimate and poetic portrayal of family survival.
**** "Jodie Comer shines in all too believable disaster drama. -- Here is a post-apocalyptic drama of survival, a fiercely acted and unnerving real-time demonstration of law and order breaking down. It is all the more disturbing, credible and immediate in that, unlike other examples of genre, the narrative isn’t heading for an abyss of unknowable chaos. Rather, it envisions society’s grim normalisation of disaster and loss, an evolutionary leap downwards but one in which a kind of rebirth is not ruled out." - Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian
“It raises questions without overtly asking them, which is the best way to experience a film. It floods over you, like the water in the story, and leaves debris. - - The End We Start From isn’t a big, blockbuster disaster movie. It’s quiet and sometimes still and it asks you to think about our existence. But it’s also meaningful, finding unlikely splendor in the midst of destruction.” - Emily Zemler for the Observer
“…an intimate, unconventional and assured first feature… This is a story of survival, but is by no means typical of the genre - instead it is sensory, tactile; a film that taps into an atavistic, instinctual primal quality that characterises new motherhood.” - Wendy Ide for Screen Daily
“Quietly powerful. Comer gives a career-defining performance.” - Jourdain Searles for the The Hollywood Reporter
“Belo directs with assured restraint, consistently stressing the human factor. There’s no flashy formal flexing here, though Suzie Lavelle’s damp earth-toned lensing, Arttu Salmi’s clipped, on-edge editing and Laura Ellis Cricks’s subtly decayed production design all play their part in connoting a jittery state of emergency, even when we can’t see the cause.” - Guy Lodge for Variety
**** “…the impact of Belo’s approach is measured in her shift of focus from external spectacle to interior angst. Here Comer delivers a masterclass in shattered optimism, providing cuddles, conversation and whispered kisses for her newborn even as London descends into chaos around her, forcing her to flee “to the north”… It’s a near flawless screen performance. In movie terms, she has arrived.” - Kevin Maher for The Times
director MAHALIA BELO | writer ALICE BIRCH | producers LEAH CLARKE, LIZA MARSHALL, SOPHIE HUNTER, AMY JACKSON & ADAM ACKLAND | director of photography SUZIE LAVELLE | production designer LAURA ELLIS CRICKS | sound designer JENS ROSENLUND PETERSEN | composer ANNA MEREDITH | vfx THEODOR GROENEBOOM & Rebel Unit | starring JODIE COMER, JOEL FRY, KATHERINE WATERSTON, MARK STRONG, NINA SOSANYA, GINA McKEE & BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH
AWARDS:
NOMINATED for 9 awards at the British Independent Film Awards 2023 inc. BEST EDITING, BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE, BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE (Katherine Waterston), BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY, BEST COSTUME DESIGN., BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN, BEST ORIGINAL MUSIC, BEST SOUND and BEST EFFECTS. | LONGLIST for OUTSTANDING DEBUT by a BRITISH WRITER, DIRECTOR or PRODUCER at the EE BAFTA Film Awards 2024
FESTIVALS:
WORLD PREMIERE at the 48th TORONTO International Film Festival 2023 (GALA PRESENTATION) | OFFICIAL SELECTION at the 67th BFI London Film Festival 2023 (BFI Patrons’ SPECIAL PRESENTATION) | OFFICIAL SELECTION at AFI Fest 2023 (SPECIAL PRESENTATION) | OFFICIAL SELECTION at the 17th ROME Film Festival 2023 | OFFICIAL SELECTION at the 18th Leiden Int. Film Festival 2023 | OFFICIAL SELECTION at the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival 2023 | Luxembourg City Film Festival 2024