Let’s be honest: no one knows the ache of unspoken love quite like the gays. And in Before We Forget, actor-turned-director Juan Pablo Di Pace delivers a tender, time-bending exploration of just that — the first crush that never left, and the ghost of regret that never really stopped haunting you.
Making his directorial debut alongside longtime friend Andrés Pepe Estrada (Argentina, 1985), Di Pace also stars as Matias, a gay Argentine filmmaker (gay in films, gay irl? What more can we ask for?) caught in the emotional limbo of a half-finished movie inspired by a Swedish classmate he met in 1997. Their friendship, full of unsaid things and stolen glances, was cut short when Alexander (Oscar Morgan) was expelled from their boarding school in Duino, Italy — leaving Matias (played in youth by Santiago Madrussan) aching with unfinished business.
RELATED: Andy & Danny Vallentine Talk ‘The Mattachine Family’
Decades later, when adult Matias is invited to Alexander’s sister’s wedding, he’s given a chance to face Alexander (August Wittgenstein) once again — and maybe, finally, say everything he didn’t back then. The result is a meta-romantic drama that moves between timelines and memory, blurring the lines between art and real life.
“I think every storyteller leaves a trace of themselves in their work,” Di Pace told IndieWire. “The inspiration came from a personal place: the adult looking back at a memory they can’t quite let go of. Something that stays with you — not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s too precious to explain. For me, that memory was my first love.”
Inspired by Claude Debussy’s Afternoon of a Faun, Di Pace calls the film his “cinematic response” to that dreamy, aching music. “There’s this delicate yearning in that music — a dreamy, teenage ache for someone that is sacredly sensual.”
The film, originally titled Duino, made waves at international festivals, including a NewFest win for Audience Award and a Jury Special Mention. Now re-titled Before We Forget, it premieres in New York on July 11, Los Angeles on July 18, and expands to more cities on July 25.
And though it’s deeply personal for Di Pace — himself an alum of the United World College in Duino — it speaks to anyone who’s ever been changed by love that dared not speak its name. “We hope the film reminds people of a kind of tenderness we’re starting to lose in cinema,” Di Pace said. “It’s for parents trying to support their kids, for adults still haunted by their first love, and for teenagers living it for the first time, right now.”
So yes, Before We Forget is a queer film — but more than that, it’s a deeply human one. A love letter to what could’ve been, and what still might be, if we’re brave enough to remember.
Source: Indiewire
I had the good fortune to see this film last year when it was exhibited at Cinema Diverse, the Palm Springs CA LGBTQ+ Film Festival that is held in September.
At the time, the film was named ‘Duino’–named after a city in Italy where a lot of the action takes place.
I thought it was one of the most thoughtful and elegant gay films I had seen in a while. It was easily my favorite of the films I saw. It was an obvious artistic work by a reflective filmmaker.
I was a little disappointed, yet hopeful, at the time because I was unsure of its future beyond the festival.
Now that it has a formal distributor, I would like to think it’ll reach the audience it deserves.