In a darkened classroom, the white cracked walls serve as a movie screen. We are in a remote mountain village in Georgia. The light from the projector breaks the darkness: the children's first cinematic experience is about to begin. Among the kids are Iman and Eva, two Muslim girls, for whom the experience becomes a turning point and inspires them to pick up a camera and start filming their daily lives. The girls are growing up in a valley infested by radicalism, where most people live in constant fear that their relatives will sacrifice their lives in the name of God.
Cinematography
The girls' own footage—raw, trembling, accidentally profound.
Direction
Gulbiani disappears; the camera becomes the girls' voice.
Production
White cracked walls as screen—cinema born from nothing.
Director
Mari Gulbiani
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pankisi Gorge, where the film is set, became a pipeline for ISIS recruits from Georgia's marginalized Kist community.
The title's cruel irony: 'before' implies an after that may never come, trapping viewer and child in perpetual dread.
GE
